Back to HOMEPAGE What is the NFUS stance on the use of
Bluetongue vaccine in Scotland?
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie, Perthshire
Filed 20 Mar 08
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The National Union of Scotland (NFUS) have been running a series of open meetings up and down Scotland, allegedly to inform and seek the views of livestock farmers with regard to how Scotland should handle the imminent threat of Bluetongue Disease spreading to Scotland this summer, if not earlier.
The latest of these roadshows was held at the East Huntingtower Hotel, Perth on the evening of Monday 17th March 2008. It was well attended. The agenda consisted of two items:
The problem of double tagging of sheep that is being imposed by the European Commission (EC)
How Bluetongue Disease should be managed in Scotland.
The speaker, as apparently at most if not all the other meetings held throughout Scotland, was Nigel Miller, NFUS Vice-President.
Although the Bluetongue Disease issue was supposed to be the main subject for informed debate, the meeting started with the sheep double tagging problem. So strongly did the NFUS feel over the matter that it is running a petition directed at the EC to ask for this directive to be withdrawn, on the basis of it being impractical and unnecessary in Scotland. I was happy to sign the petition, although it is doubtful whether Cultybraggan Farm will hold any sheep next year, or even later this year.
That took up the first half hour of Nigel Miller's talk, which he introduced with the comment that
"Since there were an above average number of protesters present, he would like to give his talk without interruption".
Presumably he was referring to those who might have different views from his own about how Bluetongue Disease should be handled in Scotland as none present would be likely to defend the EC directive on double tagging of sheep. To describe those who may disagree with his view as "protesters" is hardly the way to encourage genuine debate. It implied an unacceptable degree of arrogance, based - as it was announced - that "he was a vet". He did indeed graduate in veterinary medicine at the Royal Dick Veterinary School, Edinburgh but he allegedly has had rather limited experience as a practicing veterinary surgeon, and allegedly none at all in postgraduate veterinary scientific research.
In the half hour that Nigel Miller devoted to the subject of Bluetongue Disease, essentially the same information was repeated that has been widely distributed to the farming community - and to anyone else interested - since last year, or even the year before that. It is extraordinary that the NFUS should be only now trying to seek the views of its members - and others - as to how Bluetongue should be managed in Scotland. To say that it is a bit late in doing so would be a major understatement.
What Nigel Miller should have been doing at the Perth roadshow was to make the statement that at the relevant stakeholders meeting held with Charles Milne, Chief Veterinary Officer for Scotland, on Friday 7th March (1) it was unanimously agreed that Scotland should order sufficient vaccine against Bluetongue serotype 8 as soon as possible, and in sufficient quantity to cover all the sheep and cattle in Scotland. But what was not agreed at that meeting was just how the vaccine was to be used.
Was its use to be compulsory or voluntary?
Who would do the vaccinating?
Who would monitor it?
And who would pay for it?
The threat of Bluetongue Disease reaching the UK was clearly articulated in the Report of the Inquiry into Infectious Diseases of Livestock, published in 2002 by the Royal Society (London) following the epidemic of Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK in 2001. But throughout the following years little attention appears to have been paid to this authoritative warning. Even although what serotypes of the Bluetongue virus might be implicated were unknown at that time, this should not have prevented competent planning that could be adapted to whatever serotype, or indeed multiple types, that might be involved when the threat of the disease reaching the UK got closer. But no: the authorities slept on the matter and apparently did little or nothing. Research on midges continued on a modest scale, with the result that now, with Bluetongue already in England and the threat to Scotland acute, there are huge gaps in our knowledge of midge behaviour and the ability of different species of midge to be Bluetongue vectors. It should not have come as a surprise that the virus might be transmissible from dam to its in utero calf. That possibility is well established in relation to other viral diseases, so how come with all that Bluetongue disease about in Continental Europe in 2006 and 2007 that this possibility should only now be under consideration?
The only straw poll taken at the recent Perth meeting was whether or not Bluetongue vaccine should be ordered for Scotland. There was no proper debate as to whether vaccination should be compulsory or voluntary: just a series of 'maybe but' comments. No consensus was sought. There was much quibbling as to who should pay for it. There seemed to be a lack of concern about animal welfare, or realisation as to what it would cost in terms of managing a sick animal, or indeed of disposing of it. There seemed to be an unrealistic optimism that livestock suffering from Bluetongue would be in a fit enough condition to enter the food chain, whatever the legislation might decree.
Flawed EC Directives at the heart of Bluetongue control problems in Scotland
The fundamental problem that faces effective vaccination in Scotland is the EC directive that vaccination is not permitted in a Bluetongue-free zone. The country has to wait, according to the EC, for the spread of the virus to have been demonstrated to have occurred, whereby a Protection Zone can then be established and vaccination confined to that Protection Zone. Alternatively, the country could just declare part of it (or all of it) to be a Protection Zone even although the disease had not arrived. But if a country did that then it would have to accept all the other EC rules that pertain to Protection Zones. These include the insistence that there must be free movement of livestock between all Protection Zones within the EU, including from Member States with a very high incidence of Bluetongue Disease. For this to happen during the six weeks it takes for the vaccine to be fully effective would be disastrous and amounts to a crazy disease control policy.
It is often said that the vaccine that has been ordered by Defra, and subsequently by other countries, from Intervet is of limited use as it is not a marker vaccine, making it difficult to distinguish between a vaccinated and an infected animal. But such critics seem to forget that PCR technology can recognise vireamia in an infected animal, in the unlikely event that a vaccinated animal can be a carrier of the virus. But in the present Scottish situation, which is still Bluetongue-free, vaccination of over 85% of the sheep and cattle before the virus arrives would make worries about looking for infected livestock a somewhat academic exercise. Nevertheless, what Nigel Miller should have been saying is that for next year Scotland should be putting out to tender an order for a DIVA vaccine - one that can differentiate between a vaccinated and an infected animal. It is understood that there is no inherent problem in producing Bluetongue DIVA vaccines: it just takes longer and would be more expensive. But EC rules do not allow such a logical course of management. What Scotland wants to achieve is a vaccinated Bluetongue-free status.
But Nigel Miller seemed to favour, and so apparently does Charles Milne, a fingers-crossed policy of hoping the disease does not hit Scotland in other than "a few scatter cases" until the Vector Free Period between late December 2008 and probably mid March 2009, according to what the climate is doing at that time. (This year the Vector Free Period extended from 20th December 2007 to 15th March 2008). According to this policy, if an outbreak of Bluetongue Disease was established before the Vector Free Period came along, then vaccination could start - while of course the disease continued to spread. From what has been learned from experience in Continental Europe, it can hit livestock hard. I for one do not find statements from the CVO or anyone else, that seem to say that
a little bit of disease in the first year is acceptable
that livestock are just economic units
Also worrying is the apparent change of mind by the epidemiological modellers. Previously, Defra scientists predicted that Bluetongue Disease might reach well into Perthshire by October of this year. Remarkably we are now told that revised predictions have been drawn up that indicate that the risk is much less, although I have not been able to trace what the new maps of predicted Bluetongue Disease in Scotland are supposed to look like for this year. Perhaps we are going to see them when the EPIC Group reports, which is scheduled for just a few days time, on 21st March 2008. The EPIC Group is a consortium of six scientific establishments in Scotland under the umbrella of an organisation called Epidemiological and Population Health and Infectious Diseases Control Centre. It consists of the Glasgow Veterinary School, Edinburgh University's Centre of Infectious Diseases, the Moredun Institute, Scottish Agricultural College, Aberdeen's Macauley Land Use Research Institute and the Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland Research Institute.
However prestigious the combined names of these six institutes might be their report, whatever is says, is not going to convincingly define the risk of where, how and when Bluetongue disease is going to reach Scotland this year, or how severe it might be. We are all too well aware how so very often the epidemiological modellers got their predictions seriously wrong. Why should this be any different? What should be quite sufficient is the application of a modicum of commonsense. There is clearly a major risk of Bluetongue Disease reaching Scotland is year. It is largely academic to try and second guess with any precision where it might strike and to where it might spread. The fact that an undoubted risk exists should be enough to get on with an effective vaccination programme.
But although the relevant stakeholders have all agreed that the appropriate vaccine should be ordered, it is understood no such order has yet been placed. Surely, the authorities are not waiting for the EPIC Report, are they? Meanwhile more valuable time is wasted in a programme that is already far too late in its formation and application.
The core flaw in Scotland's Bluetongue vaccination programme is, of course, the totally inappropriate EC Directive that a member State cannot vaccinate in what the EC designates as Bluetongue-free zone. The second EC Directive that is totally inappropriate to the Scottish situation, which currently is a Bluetongue-free zone, is that if Scotland (or part of it) chooses to declare itself as Protection Zone (even although it does not have nay of the disease) then it would have to accept freedom of movement of livestock from other Protection Zones throughout the EU where Bluetongue is rife. It is difficult to comprehend how such nonsensical directives could be formulated had there been competent professional and expert advice sought when the EC was hatching them.
What Nigel Miller, and therefore NFU Scotland, should be doing is lodging two petitions to the EC. Not only should the NFUS be making a strong stand against unnecessary and impractical double tagging of sheep, but even more importantly they should be running a simultaneous petition whereby vaccination with accredited vaccines should be allowed in a Bluetongue-free country like Scotland that is at serious risk of getting the disease.
But the Perth meeting was simply told by Nigel Miller, NFUS vice-president, that Charles Milne went to the EC to ask for these rules to be changed and he was told no. And that apparently was the end of it. Why so? There should most certainly be a petition to change rules that are outrageously damaging and which are likely to go down in veterinary medicine history under the category of serious mismanagement.
The Perth meeting heard nothing from Nigel Miller about the need for Scotland to have its own efficient and rapid diagnostic facilities using modern technology.
Frankly, if this is the standard of input from the NFUS into this intensely serious situation of Bluetongue Disease, then I am left wondering why my farm pays it an annual subscription of over £370 per annum.
Remember, vaccination is best used as a preventative tool. When there is a risk of disease entering a country it is much better to vaccinate before the disease arrives, rather than waiting until it has arrived and then try to use vaccination as a means of reducing spread. Vaccination is highly effect in the first scenario, but may have less success when disease has already arrived.
Whilst being cross with NFUS for its approach, one has to wonder where Scotland's renowned scientific community has been since the Royal Society of London gave its warning in 2002 about the risk of Bluetongue reaching the UK.
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References
1. Irvine, James (2008). Scotland agrees at stakeholders meeting to order Bluetongue vaccine without further delay for all its cattle and sheep
See HOMEPAGE, filed 07 Mar 08, www.land-care.org.uk Click Here to View
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