Bluetongue threat

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Use the pre-midge season wisely to minimise the bluetongue threat.

The threat of Bluetongue and all that goes with that – from movement restrictions to vaccination strategy and from contingency plans for dealing with sick animals to how midges spread the virus – is at the forefront of everyone’s mind as we head towards spring.
Currently, producers throughout the UK are dealing with the implications of the tight controls associated with Protection and Surveillance Zones (PZ and SZ). At the same time, everyone is carefully monitoring reports concerning the rise in midge numbers that goes with warmer temperatures. In the period before the vaccine becomes available, testing and bio-security are essential. Farmers should also discuss disease prevention with the practice; and that means both vaccination and management to minimise the midge threat.
Livestock farmers across the country are being advised to get their fly treatments on early this season to help control biting and nuisance flies, and in particular any midges that could be infected with the bluetongue virus. It is advisable to monitor daytime temperatures, and when these reach 12º-15ºC (the temperature at which the bluetongue virus replicates inside midges), get on with a treatment that controls midges. In some parts of the country, this might be as early as late April
While fly treatments with midge activity cannot guarantee protection against bluetongue, what they can do is kill the female midges that are responsible for transmitting the disease, and in doing so limit the replication of these much-worried-about insects. Fewer midges mean fewer animals are bitten and the chance of limiting the spread of the disease is improved. Currently there’s only one fly treatment in the UK that has trial data to show its effectiveness against midges, and that is Intervet’s Butox SWISH.
It is relatively easy to assess populations of larger flies, such as the face fly and stable fly, and apply a pour-on treatment when they become problematic. However, it is not necessarily so when it comes to midges. The midges which are capable of infecting cattle and sheep with the bluetongue virus are much smaller than most flies (typically only 3mm long) and subsequently much harder to see, even at high populations.
The lifecycle of the culicoides midge necessitates more frequent treatments. While users of Intervet’s Butox SWISH would normally expect 8 to 10 weeks of cover from a single application, when it comes to midge control, treatments need to be applied to cattle every four weeks.
In this important pre-vaccination period, an enquiry recording form has also been set up by Intervet to allow vets to collect the names and details of anyone making enquiries about vaccination.  Simply inform the practice of the number of sheep and cattle that the vaccine is required for; this information will help your vet to estimate how much vaccine needs ordering.