UK escapes the worst of bluetongue

Dr David Gregory
Science and environment correspondent, BBC News, Midlands

The disease is rampant in Europe

It is a year since the bluetongue virus first arrived in the UK.

Spread by infected midges, the disease is hard to control and causes a painful death in the sheep that are affected.

But while the disease is rampant in Europe so far the UK has escaped a similar fate.

The UK has seen just 142 cases, with none at all in the Midlands.

How is that possible? What makes British farmers different to the French, Belgians and Dutch?

The answer is a combination of luck, the weather and science.

The farming industry has got to be congratulated on achieving a huge level of vaccination Vet and farmer Christopher Lewis

Christopher Lewis is a vet and sheep farmer based near Market Drayton, who is in no doubt about why the UK has escaped the worst.

"The farming industry has got to be congratulated on achieving a huge level of vaccination," he said.

"That was key and everybody has worked very, very hard to achieve that."

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More than 22 million doses of bluetongue vaccine have been produced and used in the UK so far.

It is now the largest vaccination programme for British farm animals.

But what makes this extraordinary is that two years ago the vaccine did not even exist.

Developed quickly

For the company that created the bluetongue vaccine, Intervet SPAH, this was a multi-million pound race against time.

Alasdair King, who works as a veterinary manager at for the firm, said: "A normal vaccine would take seven, eight, even 12 years to develop.

Vet and farmer Christopher Lewis says the industry is to be congratulated

"In this particular case we managed to develop it in under two years.

"Now that was because we recognised the importance of needing a vaccine quickly," he said.

There are about 24 different types of bluetongue virus and one of the problems with the research was working out which one might break out and head into northern Europe first.

The scientists had to wait for a while to make sure they did not produce a vaccine for a version of the disease that was not going to be a threat.

Midge-free

As well as the vaccine the weather has played a part too.

The UK's disappointing summer has been caused by westerly winds that bring bad weather but are also midge-free.

But this week the winds have begun to shift to the south with the potential to sweep in bluetongue-infected midges from the continent.

There are also still questions to be answered about the vaccine itself.

Farmers want to know if the effects of the vaccine will be passed on to lambs born to ewes that have had the jab.

According to Mr Lewis: "An industry under pressure would like to know if it will only have to inoculate once."

There is one final irony in this story.

To roll out the vaccine the government is slowly declaring increasing areas of the UK a "Bluetongue Protection Zone".

But that also means it cannot block imports of animals from other bluetongue-affected countries.

Just this week the two most recent outbreaks of the disease were caused by imported French animals.

So despite the fact there have been no cases in the Midlands, the changing weather and the risk from imports mean, for farmers in the region, the cost of the vaccine is a price worth paying.