Farming: SAC broadly backs report on bleeding calf syndrome

Brian Hosie, the veterinary services manager with the Scottish Agricultural College yesterday agreed with most of the findings emerging from the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs report into bleeding calf syndrome (to which both SAC and the Moredun Research Institute contributed) however, he said it was important to make one point of clarification.

"The report states that calves were more likely to have the disease if they were born in Scotland, but this has more to do with the fact that the Scottish industry was quicker on to the case than whether the incidence was higher in Scotland."

However, the main findings were very much in line with the college's assessment of the disease, which goes under the medical title of "bovine neonatal pancytopaenia"(BNP) and where the key symptoms are either internal or external bleeding in calves only a few weeks old.

The report's authors are not conclusive in their findings as the level of BNP varies greatly in different European countries.

In some countries there are no cases, while in others - including Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands - there are more cases than in the UK. These observations indicate to the authors of the report that there are other, unknown factors involved with BNP in addition to the main trigger, the PregSure BVD vaccine used in controlling bovine viral diarrhoea.

They say a calf is over ten times more likely to develop BNP if its mother was given the PregSure BVD vaccine prior to its birth. The vaccine was voluntarily withdrawn from sale by Pfizer on 2 June, 2010, and the licence for distribution was suspended later that year by the European Commission.

The authors state that BNP is rare and that the vast majority of calves born to vaccinated cows are healthy and the number of BNP in calves is very low; currently 16 cases for every 10,000 doses of vaccine used. Another finding was that calves are less likely to develop BNP if kept outside, or if the herd has been established for a long time.

Hosie said all farmers faced with an unexplained death of a young calf should send the carcase to a laboratory to confirm the cause. So far this year, SAC has dealt with 50 cases of BNP.