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Defra orders 22.2million doses of Bluetongue serotype
8 vaccine for England & Wales:
for farmers to buy if they want to.
What kind of health policy is that?
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie,
Perthshire, Scotland
Filed 20 Dec 07
©www.land-care.org.uk
The Westminster Minister of the Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs has announced that they have placed an order with
Intervet for 22.2million doses of Bluetongue serotype 8 vaccine,
so that farmers in England can buy it from the Defra to use on their
animals if they so wish.
This seems to be a truly remarkable state of affairs
with a rationale that defies logic (1).
Where is the coordinated effort to control
the spread of Bluetongue disease that has spread rapidly throughout
continental Europe, which arrived in England earlier this year and
which will inevitably spread further in 2008 with potentially devastating
effect on the UK livestock industry?
What has happened to the concept of creating an
effective barrier to the spread of the virus by using timely vaccination
against it in a manner based on the known science of vaccination
and what it can achieve?
The European Commission can well be severely criticised
for not getting its act together to produce a coordinated policy
to control Bluetongue - including additional serotypes - throughout
the EU. They are still talking about it: offering to pay for the
vaccine and half the costs of vaccination but still without any
coherent policy or the firm order of any vaccine. It takes the vaccine
companies some 6 months or longer to produce a new vaccine and provide
it in such massive quantities, So, with the rate at which the EC
is conducting its painfully slow deliberations, the vaccine will
be available too late to prevent further spread and serious damage
to EU livestock.
Hopefully Scotland may manage to get a plan together
that will set up a vaccination barrier starting from the border
with England and working north. For that to be effective vaccination
against Bluetongue will have to be compulsory. May be there are
a number of cattle, sheep and goats whose whereabouts may not be
fully traceable, but so long as over 80% of the susceptible livestock
are vaccinated then an effective barrier to the spread of disease
will be achieved. But only provided that no cattle, tested or otherwise,
are allowed to move from England into Scotland. A possible major
obstacle to applying this logic is likely to be ill-conceived EC
rules as to what the EC will allow to be vaccinated. They may well
block such a plan for Scotland, no matter who pays for the vaccine.
AN EC conference on the future strategy for vaccination within the
EU is scheduled to take place in Brussels on 16th January 08. I
wonder what representation Scotland will have at the table, or whether
as far as the UK is concerned will the terrible defra dominate.
To date the debate with Scottish livestock farmers in general has
been miniscule and far too late.
What Scotland desperately now needs is its own
laboratory facilities, licenced to carry out Bluetongue and other
viral diagnostic work using modern technology that does not require
the highest level of biosecurity. RT-PCR technology that is mobile
and can be taken to the farm gate from any of the 11 established
veterinary laboratories in Scotland is what is needed. And it cannot
come soon enough.
When there is a serious risk of a viral disease
spreading to new territory it is axiomatic that it is better to
achieve vaccination in the susceptible animals BEFORE the virus
tries to invade. Whoever is advising defra seems to have forgotten
that. Hopefully, the Scottish counterparts to defra will do much
better. But the worry is that the management of notifiable diseases,
such as Foot and Mouth Disease and Bluetongue, are not devolved,
while other aspects of animal health and welfare are devolved.
What a muddle!
©www.land-care.org.uk
References
1. Irvine, James (2007).
It seems one can only despair over the UK's Bluetongue vaccination
programme.
See ANIMAL HEALTH - GENERAL Homepage, filed 23 Nov 07,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
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