Preventive measures will be extended to the entire Valencian Community after an outbreak of bluetongue was detected on a cattle farm in Orihuela. Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries We will call on all goat farms in the autonomous region to disinfect the premises from April 1, provided that the animals have not been vaccinated preventively before.. This is a complementary measure to the vaccination of cows and sheep in the province of Alicante, which is expected to start in the coming days. Farmers expressed concern about what was happening and feared it would affect marketing, so they demanded agility in administering the doses. However, veterinarians send a calm message and clearly state that this virus does not affect humans, so there is no risk..
This Wednesday, the Ministry of Agriculture and the ministry of the sector were informed that an outbreak of bluetongue was detected on a sentry farm with 180 cows; this was the first epidemic recorded in the Valencian Community in the last 15 years. It is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes belonging to the genus Culicoides and affects wild and domestic ruminant animals.. In this context, it is worth noting that the livestock facility is located on the border with Murcia, the region where the disease was declared at the end of last year.
The Ministry stated that the vaccination of all sheep and cattle species older than three months in the province has been prioritized, and immediately implemented prevention, surveillance and control measures in the region to prevent the spread of the disease. For him, The autonomous department itself launched an urgent action to purchase the first 120,000 doses. In this sense, it should be noted that approximately 90,000 animals of both species are registered in this region, of which 81,000 are sheep and 9,000 are cows.
Well, apart from these measures announced on the first day, other complementary measures that will affect goat farms will be implemented as of April 1, when the current period, which is considered the vector-free period, ends. As the Ministry itself emphasized, when this date comes, all farms in the Community will be closed as a whole. Unless the animals have previously been voluntarily vaccinated, they are obliged to disinfect the relevant facilities to prevent the presence of the mosquito vector..
It is planned to start administering doses of vaccines for sheep and cows in the Alicante province in the coming days. Target to have all animals vaccinated before April.
This is exactly what is demanded from the livestock industry. Juan Luis Gimeno, sector head of Asaja Alicante, does not hide the concern caused by this focus. “It is not a virus that affects people, but such things are never good, especially for an industry like ours, which has been in difficult times for a long time due to increases in production costs and prices, no less. , they served to pay compensation,” he states. Therefore, the department’sAct effectively and with maximum possible agility to prevent the problem from escalating over time”.
Peace
But a message of calm is being sent from the veterinary field. An authoritative voice in this sense is Gonzalo Moreno del Val, vice-president of the General Council of Spanish Veterinary Schools, and he is categorical when he states: This disease cannot be transmitted to humans even by consuming meat or milk from an infected animal..
In fact, he adds, there is no transmission through direct contact between animals. “It explains that the transmission was caused by the bite of a mosquito, so we are lucky that the detection of the epidemic occurred precisely at a time when such insects did not exist, which means that no epidemics limited the movements of livestock.”
Regarding the effects this can have on animals, Moreno states: Sheep are the ones that get sick the most and in extreme cases it can cause 30% death.. However, given that in most cases the virus can only be detected through laboratory samples, symptoms in cows are minor or absent. The same goes for goats with a minor health problem that may not be detected at the symptom level.