Farmers praised for disease control

AFTER praising the Scottish Government and the farming industry north of the Border for their pro-active stance on a number of livestock diseases, the president of the British Veterinary Association, Bill Reilly, warned against complacency.

Speaking in Edinburgh last night, he welcomed the recent move to a lower risk zone status in relation to bluetongue disease and said it had been a hard fought battle.

However, he stated: "Despite the additional protection this status gives us, I must re-iterate the message of ongoing vaccination and vigilance."

Specifically he urged farmers to watch where they were buying new stock and said it was important to remember that a "small but significant" number of pregnant animals could be carrying an infected foetus.

"If the newborn animal infects the local midge population, it could restart the circulation of the disease. And once the disease is in the midge population, we know it can spread across large distances in very short periods of time."

Reilly was also cautious about the recent successful move by Scotland to gain officially tuberculosis free status which again was due, he said, to the combined efforts of the veterinary profession and the Scottish Government.

However, he said it was vital that the cattle industry supported stricter cattle measures and tougher testing regimes, to retain this status. "The recent confirmed case at Keith is a reminder that if we want to remain free from tuberculosis in our cattle, we must accept the difficulties that come with it."

His caution was in complete contrast to a request made earlier this week by the Scottish Beef Cattle Association, who asked the Scottish Government to consider easing the regulations for TB testing.

A newcomer to the list of diseases concerning the veterinary profession has been bleeding calf syndrome, or bovine neonatal pancytopenia, which Reilly described as a "worrying development" because so far, neither the scientists nor research workers have found its causes.

He was careful to say that there were unproven links between the disease and a bovine viral diarrhoea vaccine. But he advised farmers to continue to vaccinate against BVD as the threat from this wasting disease was far greater than that of bleeding calf syndrome.

Earlier in his address, the BVA president referred to the dispute between his profession and the UK government agency Animal Health over the fees to be paid to official or ministry vets.

Last month, Animal Health officials informed the BVA that all work carried out by official veterinarians would have to be put out to tender.

Reilly urged the government to consider the ramifications on surveillance and disease control work.