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Comment on Dr Ruth Watkins' view on
EC rules re Bluetongue vaccination
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie, Perthshire
Filed 27 Mar 08
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Dr Ruth Watkins formerly held the very senior post of Head of Diagnostic Virology at St Mary's Hospital where she was an Honorary Consultant and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Virology at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, Imperial College School of Medicine, London. She is currently a sheep farmer in Wales. With her invaluable expertise in virology coupled with her knowledge of farming, it is important that her views are listened to. She recently sent the following comment to www.land-care.org. uk and to www.warmwell.com.
"If the Scottish virologist veterinarians in all their vet schools and research facilities cannot come forward with a unified plan to tackle Europe about the stupid rule of forbidding vaccination outside the protection zone there is no hope for anyone else to do so."
Dr Ruth Watkins, virologist and sheep farmer, holding a Brecknock Cheviot lamb
(To enlarge photo: Click Here)
Photo © by courtesy of Dr Ruth Watkins
To date, the European Commission (EC) has refused to alter its damaging rules which forbid Bluetongue vaccination in a Bluetongue-free country or region. Unless, that is, that country or region declares itself to be a Protection Zone. The consequences of that is that free movement of animals into that zone from all other Protection Zones has to follow. The Vector Free Period (when midges are decreed to be inactive) ended 15th March 2008.The result would be a massive risk for Bluetongue to enter and spread within Scotland for some 6 weeks before vaccination could be fully effective. This makes no scientific sense.
It is understood that the EC has concerns about the use of live vaccines in other countries that may have lead to the spread of disease. But it is emphatically not live vaccine, but inactivated vaccine, that would be used in the UK and Bluetongue-free Scotland in particular.
It is also alleged that the EC has concerns that the vaccine that will be available is not a DIVA vaccine that can distinguish between an infected and a vaccinated animal. But in the context of Bluetongue-free Scotland this is not an over-riding issue. If Scotland begins its vaccination programme with compulsory vaccination starting from the Border with England and working northwards, there will a negligible chance of Bluetongue Disease affecting its livestock. In the event that Bluetongue Disease was suspected in a vaccinated animal, that animal can still be tested for viraemia using PCR technology.
In addition, Scotland should be demanding control over its own diagnostic service in relation to this and other viral diseases of livestock, using modern technology that does not require the highest level of biosecurity. Quality control could still be done in collaboration with Pirbright.
While Animal Health and Welfare are fully devolved issues to the Scottish Parliament, the trouble is that financially crippled Defra holds the purse strings. This, coupled with scientifically unsound EC rules on vaccination in Bluetongue-free countries or regions, makes a mockery of effective control of Bluetongue Disease on Scotland.
©www.land-care.org.uk
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