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Scottish State Veterinary Service makes
depressing comments regarding its policy on
vaccination against Bluetongue Disease
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie, Perthshire
Filed 20 Jan 08
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Dr Mike Lamont, Senior Veterinary Adviser to the Scottish Government and deputy to the Chief Veterinary Officer in Scotland (Charles Milne), addressed a joint open meeting of the National Sheep Association and the Scottish Beef Cattle Association at the Huntingtower Hotel, Perth on the evening of the 16th January 2008. Although the title of the meeting was "What next?", the dominant topic for discussion amongst the 75 or so delegates was Bluetongue Disease and how to prevent it getting into Scotland.
I was far from the only delegate to be profoundly depressed by what Dr Lamont said, whilst the majority had reservations. Dr Lamont stated that the view within Pentland House, where the relevant part of the Scottish Executive abides, is that (to quote):
"Bluetongue vaccination is unlikely to be needed this year in Scotland"
"There is a problem ordering vaccine now because the shelf-life is less than 12 months and the cost of some £5million pounds could be wasted"
"Scotland would have to be declared a Protected Zone (PZ) before vaccination could take place on account of EC rules"
These revealing statements need to be analyzed in turn.
"Bluetongue vaccination is unlikely to be needed this year in Scotland"
Dr Lamont claimed that this assertion was based on what happened in Continental Europe in 2006 and 2007, where Bluetongue Disease caused low mortality in its first year but spread rapidly in the summer of the second year. Bluetongue is now rampant in many parts of Continental Europe with devastating effects on its livestock industry. It would appear that the thinking of Dr Lamont and his colleagues at the State Veterinary Service (SVS) at Pentland House is extraordinarily complacent, and bound up with illogical EC regulations which they appear to be prepared to slavishly follow.
The fundamental principle underlying any vaccination programme - whether it be for animal or human disease - is that, when there is a significant risk of a disease spreading to a community, then it is far better to vaccine BEFORE the disease gets there, rather than waiting until it arrives before starting a vaccination programme.
Scotland is certainly at risk of getting Bluetongue Disease in 2008. Even Dr Lamont admitted that
"the disease is likely to arrive in Scotland in late summer 2008"
But Dr Lamont seemed content and reassured that, since the disease is only likely to cause low mortality we can safely wait till next year before bothering about vaccination. This shows an incredible lack of basic understanding of disease control using the most powerful weapon available, namely vaccination. Frankly, if an adviser on human health had stated such an approach towards the risk of arrival of a disease that affected humans he would be out of office by public demand within hours. It may take a bit longer in Dr Lamont's case, should things not go quite as he so confidently predicts.
I fear that the SVS may have been unduly influenced in their approach by the epidemiological modellers. Remember how they got things so very wrong in Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) UK2001? They were using data that was fundamentally unreliable. In the case of Bluetongue the assumption that the disease is likely to behave in the same way as it did in the Continent in 2006 and 2007 is more than a little questionable. After all, Bluetongue has made some pretty big jumps geographically in recent years which, as i understand it, no epidemiological model reliably predicted.
Scientific commonsense would surely dictate that vaccination against Bluetongue Disease should start NOW in Scotland, commencing at the border with England and working northwards as rapidly as possible until the whole country is covered on the basis of a compulsory policy.
"There is a problem ordering vaccine now because the shelf-life is less than 12 months and the cost of some £5million pounds could be wasted"
What an extraordinary statement! Is the SVS interested in animal health and welfare? So it is a waste of money to vaccinate in advance of a disease getting a foothold, is it? May be Dr Lamont will be proved correct that the morality from Bluetongue later this year may be low, but he did mention in passing that the infected animal's fertility may be affected. May be the situation is akin to that in humans when, once a virus has got into a community, enhanced virulence may develop. That is all the more reason why vaccination should have been planned to happen now - or at least as soon as possible - rather than lackadaisically waiting - with fingers crossed - until next year. Well planned disease control should not depend on crossed fingers.
Intervet, one of the main global vaccine manufacturers and the one who got the contract from Defra for 22.3million doses of BT v8 vaccine for use in England within its PZ zone, is reportedly much further on with the development of a BT v8 vaccine than previously anticipated. The logistics of mass production are allegedly to be worked out by March 2008, with the fulfillment of orders starting May 2008. Five million pounds worth of doses (or whatever is needed) for Scotland should have been in that queue. That could have made a big contribution to the control of the disease entering Scotland. The doses would have been used as soon s they were available, and they would not have been "wasted". They would only have been wasted if the EC had continued to decree that they could not be used in a Bluetongue-free zone. But the trouble with the EC is that it does not appear to be able to make rational decisions in a timely manner on account of its size and apparent lack of expert scientific advice that is independent of politics.
Ironically, on the same day as the meeting in Perth where Dr Lamont made his depressing description of SVS policy, the EC was having a meeting to review its policy on the management of Bluetongue Disease. Charles Milne, Scotland's Chief Government Vet, was at the Brussels meeting. I can only hope that he was not saying the same things at Brussels as his deputy was saying at Perth, but I fear he would be.
"Scotland would have to be declared a Protected Zone (PZ) before vaccination could take place on account of EC rules"
This is at the heart of the problem. It is a nonsensical rule. How can the EC hope to prevent the spread of Bluetongue if it bans the use of vaccination in areas at risk but which as yet do not have the disease?
What I would like to hear is the Scottish SVS, shouting from the rooftops so that everyone can hear, that this rule must be urgently changed. But I have not even heard a whimper from Pentland House on the matter, busy as usual with gold-plating EC Directives of every kind that relate to farming in Scotland and dispensing punitive penalties to any transgressor.
The EC has recently confirmed that they are willing to pay for the Bluetongue vaccine provided that at least 80% of the cattle and sheep are vaccinated, presumably in their stated attempt to control - and eventually eradicate - the disease from the EU and beyond. But, of course, their laudable policy is undermined by their own irrational rules as to how the vaccine may be used.
Why is it that the Bluetongue vaccine that has been ordered is not a DIVA vaccine?
A DIVA vaccine is one that carries a marker that enables a vaccinated animal to be distinguished from an animal that has developed antibodies in response to an infection. Many modern vaccines are of the DIVA type, but apparently not the BT v8 vaccine that is being produced by Intervet. I do not recall ever being informed as to why this is so. Is it not possible with this particular virus, or was it not asked for, or does it take too long to develop, or is it too expensive?
A DIVA vaccine to appropriate subtypes of Bluetongue would be an invaluable tool, together with a locally available rapid RT-PCR facility to detect vireamia. Not only is there currently a massive distrust in the competence of Defra, but if Scotland had its own laboratory facilities the results of tests (which, with modern technology, do not require high grade biosecurity facilities) would be available in hours instead of too many days.
The science exists whereby Scotland could be protected from Bluetongue, but it does not look as though the authorities have the will to apply it.
Instead, Defra draws lines on maps, demarcating arbitrary definitions of what is a Protected Zone and what is a Surveillance Zone, as required by the EC. It applies a Vector Free Period as recommended by the EC, whereby livestock can move out of a Protected Zone in the belief that midges are not active during this period, which started on 20th December 2007.
However, as Dr Lamont admitted in his recent presentation at Perth, our current knowledge of how different species of midge behave in relation to the transmission of Bluetongue virus is very limited. He described how Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities are undertaking a £700,000 research project with the Institute of Animal Health at Pirbright. This includes the use of 40 traps throughout Scotland. What this indicates, however, is a lamentable lack of current knowledge about midges in Scotland and yet the risk of Bluetongue virus reaching Scotland has been known since 2006. Nevertheless, Dr Lamont and his colleagues at Pentland House, Edinburgh feel confident that keeping their fingers crossed will do the trick: they are apparently prepared to sit on their hands (with fingers crossed, of course) that Scottish midges will not be active in temperatures below 15degC and will be killed off in frost, although there is increasing evidence that some types of midge on the Continent do not obey this rule and survive quite nicely, and may even be active, at much lower temperatures than previously thought.
Pre and post movement testing of animals for either Bluetongue or FMD, supposedly according to EC rules, has resulted in some conspicuous failures. In the case of cattle imported from Germany this was put down to the Germans not getting their act properly co-ordinated between different States or Regions. But this was not the case in relation to the recurrence of FDM UK2007 after movement restrctions had been lifted following the leak of FMD virus from the ill-maintained biosecurity of Defra's own premises at Pirbright.
Encouragingly, most of the delegates at the Perth meeting appeared to have reservations over Dr Lamont's largely unjustified reassurances over the likelihood, and the consequences, of Bluetongue hitting Scotland later this year. Perhaps the mood of his audience was best summed up two comments, made by farmers at the meeting, addressed to Dr Lamont.
"Is 2009 not too late? The alarm bells should be ringing much louder than they are",
said Bruce Lang, Starr, Cupar, Fife
"We are waltzing into a disaster here. Surely we need a vaccine available for 2008. It is wishful thinking that Bluetongue will not be here soon",
said Ben Jack, Wester Upper Urquhart, Gateside, West Fife.
The meeting never got round to discussing whether vaccination against Bluetongue should be voluntary or compulsory. So lackadaisical was the approach to the subject that the impression gained was that the authorities would only begin to think about that once a case of Bluetongue had occurred in Scotland.
One really wonders if some of the basic lessons, repeatedly documented with clarity in the many Inquiries that followed the UK Foot-and-Mouth Disease epidemic in 2001, have ever been learned.
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