Blue Tongue Disease Hits Britain and US


Second Case Of Bluetongue

September, 24, 2007

A second cow has tested positive for Bluetongue at the farm where the UK's first case
of the disease was discovered, Government officials have said.
The animal at the Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm, near Ipswich, Suffolk has been slaughtered after the discovery was made by vets.

A Defra official said there was not enough evidence to confirm an outbreak.
A cow was diagnosed as the first ever British case of the disease on Saturday.
Farmers could face foot-and-mouth style restrictions if the disease proves to be circulating in Suffolk.

The strain of the disease, BTV8, is the same as the one which has killed livestock across Europe.
Bluetongue, which affects, cattle, goats, sheep and deer, is not spread between animals - unlike foot and mouth - only through midge bites.
Meanwhile, a suspected foot and mouth case in Petersfield, Hampshire was a false alarm, Defra has said.

But another herd of cattle is being culled in Surrey in the continuing battle against the disease.

Livestock were being slaughtered on a farm in the protection zone in Surrey on suspicion of having the virus.

It has infected six farms since it leaked from a laboratory at Pirbright in August.

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Bluetongue virus threatens cattle in England

September, 24, 2007

Officials are carrying out tests on cattle in south-east England after a new virus was found in a British cow for the first time.
Since July, the insect borne virus, bluetongue, has infected nearly 3,000 cows in northern Europe.
It has now been found on a farm in Suffolk.
The disease, while not as lethal as foot and mouth, sometimes cuts milk yields in dairy herds by more than half.
It is thought the disease may have been carried by midges swept across the Channel from France and the Netherlands.


******* Farm Animals in Britain; Deer, Sheep, Cattle in America found
w/ Ebola-like Hemorrhagic Disease Linked to Global Warming

September, 23, 2007

England this weekend awoke to a barrage of news that a devastating virus spread by gnats or “midges” had lept the channel from Europe and landed in a cow on a farm in Suffolk. This is the UK’s first outbreak. Since August 2006, the virus has been found in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and northern France.

In America, far less widely reported is evidence that the disease has also arrived among the soaring white tail deep population in the Midwest and is moving East. The Glascow Daily Times of Kentucky reports that the disease has spread eastward across Kentucky and has been reported in Tennessee, Indiana, West Virgina and Pennsylvania.

Typically the disease is confined to the Southeast.

In a disturbing development, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the deer virus has spread to cattle in two Pike County cattle farms. According to Farm and Ranch Guide , North Dakota State University Extension Service livestock specialists are warning producers to protect their sheep and cattle against Blue Tongue. Another outbreak in Montana has resulted in a quarantine of sheep and is said to be the first time the disease has been reported in that state. Hunters and farmers are both told to be on the alert.

The rapid northern spread of Blue Tongue is the latest disease linked by some scientists to global warming. Its full name is Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, and like the dreaded Ebola Virus, it is a “hemorrhagic” disease. Animals contract the disease by biting small infected “midges.” It is these midges which last year lept across the Mediterranean from Northern Africa, their former most northernmost terrain.

Blue tongue is often fatal and causes severe suffering in affected animals. Incubation period lasts from 5-20 days. There is no indication that it can affect humans or pets, and the spread of the virus subsides with the onset of frost and cold weather.

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