Tilting at Windmills

October 10 2007 ~ Unbelievable

Commenting on the announcement that the PZ for Bluetongue has indeed been expanded, deputy chief veterinary officer Fred Landeg, quoted in Farmers Weekly, said: "Finding further cases is not unexpected, particularly given the nature of the disease, and we expect to see more cases before the end of the active midge season this winter. If we are to contain the disease within the Control and Protection Zone, we must have an accurate picture of how far the disease has spread."


"
But even for Fred Landeg midges will not behave in a regimented and acceptable manner. Unlike the rest of his department midges dare to cross red lines. Which is precisely why random blood checks around the control zone, preferably in cattle, should have been carried out long ago. Surveillance and testing has been woeful and this applies to Foot and Mouth too. DEFRA's position is still "wait and hope" and their location - according to commentators at one EU meeting who must remain anonymous - is "dreamland".
Will Mr Landeg be ordering men in white suits to place sticky nets around the perimeter of the new zone?

"Unless one plans to concrete the whole country these isolated measures won't have any influence on vector numbers..." writes Sabine Zentis from the heart of midge infested Germany.
While one would not put it past the present incumbents to want to concrete over the whole country, the unfortunate fact remains that bluetongue is not going to be fought off by anything short of vaccine. There may be some short term measures and an interesting article appeared in the Farmers Guardian today on the subject - but our German correspondent, about as experienced as we're going to find, has written a commentary which warns

....the use of these products only had a very minimal, if any effect on infections....The problem is the vast amount of culicoides, there are gazillions around and because of their numbers these measures don't work satisfactorily My private view :
The whole insecticide exercise gave people the feeling of at least doing SOMETHING but the use as a means to prevent Bluetongue is questionable. We did it all - from as early as April, - pour on, ear clips containing deltamethrine, Ivermectine - but with approx. 20% of animals clinically affected and an unknown number of subclinically infected animals I don't see this as a big success.
It is a Don Quixote fight...."

Bluetongue Vaccination in Europe

Far more revealing than anything seen on the DEFRA website is this bluetongue map - (pdf slow link but works eventually) available on line as a pdf file from the Bvet. admin site in Switzerland, showing the relentless march of bluetongue across Europe. (As the pdf file opens the red dots appear with a rapidity that mirrors the cases themselves.) Switzerland is anxiously awaiting its first case and sees the whole picture - including the new cases in Essex and outside London that reveal the scale of the impending disaster.
Meanwhile there are unconfirmed reports that the UK Bluetongue Protection Zone has been expanded (34 cases now).

Alistair Driver writes in the Farmers Guardian



"If confirmed by Defra today, it will be the first clear indication that the disease has spread beyond the local area near Ipswich where it was first discovered. While this is a worrying development, particularly for those now drawn into the zone, it will reportedly bring two more abattoirs into the Protection Zone."


Of course there is a desperate shortage of slaughter houses throughout Britain let alone in the Bluetongue Protection Zone - as per the legacy of a succession of lunatic policies involving spurious health and safety concerns for "EU export standards". In reality the enthusiasm of MAFF vets to increase their power and influence in the 1980s was gleefully supported by the big slaughterhouses who were delighted to see - as a result of the one-size-fits-all "harmonisation" of regulation 91/497/EEC - the medium sized and the small family abattoirs go to the wall.

" If it indeed it is a true case of infection in situ in England, I would fully expect the epidemic to take off next year."
Professor N. James MacLachlan, of the School of Veterinary Medicine University of California Davis, says that the virus proved between 2006 and 2007 that it could overwinter in northern Europe, "so I don’t think the English winter will exterminate it." (See egghead Blog at UC Davis)

MacLachlan says that the btv-8 strain is unusually virulent in cattle and goats and also


"appears to have found a new insect partner to transmit itself....The sobering reality is that this might just be a portent of things to come regarding climate change and the spread of vector borne diseases, especially other Culicoides transmitted viruses like African horse sickness...."


Meanwhile, another sobering reality - the mass killing of light lambs and the price crash for lamb both at the abattoir and the sale of breeding ewes and ewe lambs is a portent of miseries to come.
The media are steering well clear of reporting distressing scenes and so the general public have simply no idea of the desperate seriousness of the present situation for all livestock farmers - not only those completely stalled in the various zones.

Will the lambs simply be left there?


Ruth Watkins sums it up






"...went to our white faced ewe sale yesterday to sell a pen of 10 ewe lambs.
They were as good as I can produce... I got £19 a head for my ewe lambs, I was last and decided I had to sell them otherwise I could not sell my heifers next week in the annual sale of pedigree Welsh Black cattle at Llandovery. 2 buyers bid against each other so that £17 went up to £19.




Would I have had any buyers at all if others had sold their ewe lambs? Most did not sell and were not even bid £20 for a ewe lamb - and most farmers would not contemplate selling below £30 or even £25. They might get £29 now at the abattoir (mine were not quite ready for the abattoir but I do hope mine will be used for breeding. I know they will make lovely ewes, my shearling ewes this year are my best ever and I am keeping them all). The farmers were shell shocked.




If they take them back what will they do with them? Some farmers had gone by the time their ewes came into the pen. Will the lambs simply be left there? The auctioneers were selling them at any price subject to approval by the farmer, and if the farmer couldn't be contacted then they were sold for the auctioneer Christmas fund...."

(Cartoon "after Peter Brookes" with apologies to him but enormous thanks to Sabine)

Although the UK may still only be waking up gradually to the potential nightmare of Bluetongue and the necessity of vaccinating against it, our close neighbours are very much further along in their thinking; the question now is simply whether to go for full eradication or for voluntary or ring vaccination.
It would appear that France favours eradication and - since Spain is now watching the southwards advance of BTv-8 with increasing alarm - at least ring vaccinate in order to try to protect the South as soon as possible.
Belgium and Luxembourg are both anxious to get vaccination moving.
As for the costs of the vaccines and the process, according to the Working Document on "Harmonised and enhanced response to Bluetongue outbreaks in the EU" (Feb 07), we read that Council Decision 90/424/EEC on expenditure in the veterinary field provides for the Member State

"......to obtain a Community contribution for the eradication of the disease up to
100% of the costs of the vaccine doses and 50% of vaccination."

Of course, this all presupposes a supply of vaccine and since Merial was far ahead of the field on this we can only hope, yet again, that the hold-up is quickly resolved.

October 8th ~ "living with these restrictions not as bad as watching animals go down with BT"

DEFRA announced that “under strict conditions” an abattoir in West Sussex and another in Lincoln will take animals for slaughter from within the Bluetongue protection zone due to the immense strain on abattoirs inside the zone.
Farmers Guardian "The decision to grant a general licence to move animals to these abattoirs has come after a veterinary risk assessment concluded that the move would not risk a spread of disease. "
As for the desperate pleas from those in the Zone for it to be extended to the whole of the UK, Sabine Ventis remains deeply sympathetic but adamant in her advice:


"I can understand exactly that something must be done, otherwise farmers will go out of business in droves but they really shouldn't extend the zone but rather give permission for all movements directly to slaughter. This will only have to be for a couple of weeks at least: once the vector activity ceases animals for breeding can be moved after blood tests giving a negative result for the virus.
We have been living with these restrictions for 14 months now -
and they are not as bad as watching animals go down with BT in large numbers"

. The closure of so many small local slaughterhouses for spurious "health and safety" reasons is now reaping its miserable reward -

A blue funk

October 8th ~ Bluetongue Research
cost UK taxpayers 4,000,000 euros (sic)

We see in DEFRA's Bluetongue Surveillance in the UK
SCoFCAH 20 October 2006 (pdf) that this money went on


• Survey of the distribution of Culicoides and species
  profile and vector competence in the UK
  
• Molecular epidemiology - Virus characterisation to determine virus
  relationships and sources of incursions
  
• Modelling using
  - Remote sensing, GIS and Satellite Imaging
  -Traditional modelling to obtain Ro
  -Meteorological data - wind, temperature,
  humidity
  
• Development of new BTV vaccines
  - sub-unit vaccines and delivery systems
£2,769,668 pounds? Nearly three million pounds? Where was the provision for adequate surveillance and testing in all this? Taxpayers' money was used for new BTV vaccine development? As Professor Spratt shows below, there is no risk involved in the continuing and so vitally needed production at Merial. DEFRA however - using safety as its justification - has not so far relaxed its grip. The vitally needed BTV-8 vaccine (that have paid for and that we need) remains for the time being in limbo.

October 6 2007 ~ " UK farmers haven't understood the implications of declaring GB as a BT zone..".

The problem, says Sabine Zentis, (not only an expert in this disease but also a prize-winning breeder of English Longhorns) is that UK farmers haven't understood the implications of declaring GB as a BT zone so that internal movements can happen. Next year things are going to be very much worse.
Frau Zentis writes,

"This might be due to the fact that Fred Landeg was quoted as saying that the disease might die out during the winter. The NFU chairman of the Suffolk National Farmers' Union (see edp24.co.uk) should look over his fence; he's seen only the start of BT but by next year he's going to have to prepare himself for real losses.
Landeg is repeating the same wishful thinking that has been the main policy in Germany and he seems to ignore the fact that this disease doesn't just go away because a vet says so..."

October 6th 2007 ~ "movements straight to abattoirs outside the restricted zones should be permitted as soon as possible."

Sabine Zentis says," There is no risk involved if animals are slaughtered within a short period of time, say 24 hours."

But plans to resume movement country wide without vector surveillance showing that no culicoides are active because of low temperatures are extremely unwise. While it might seem fine in the UK this year with a low viral load and perhaps not too many culicoides infected, it would be a recipe for disaster next year. Such free movements would increase the spread of BT enormously.

The consequences of a massive outbreak as in Northern Europe this year have been an absolute disaster for the sheep sector. On dairy farms even cows are dying of BTV 8 with some farmers losing on average 2 animals per week.

Since it is so important to prevent regions from getting infected by multiple serotypes, BT affected farmers can't export into free regions or regions under restrictions for another serotype. There is no cross protection between the 24 different serotypes. A different serotype can cause severe losses to cattle. However, between the regions affected by the same serotype there are no restrictions in trade. Once the FMD restrictions are lifted the UK will be able to export animals from the BT restricted areas to all areas within the EU affected by the SAME serotype ( zone F). A note of caution from Frau Zentis:

"The legislation is very clear on lifting of restrictions to regain the status: country or region free of BT: a country has to prove by surveillance that for TWO YEARS no virus has been circulating."
Thus the UK must be free from BTV circulation during 2008 and 2009 if restrictions are to be lifted in 2010.