BT at Lewes and Hemmel Hempstead 27.08.08

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Animal Health informed us yesterday, 27th August 2008, that Blue Tongue had been detected in imported rams at Lewes and Hemmel Hempstead.
It is reported as BTV8 so if all around have vaccinated it may not be too much of a threat.

Duncan

[Penny]

Do you know where they have been imported from, Duncan?

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Both from the same premises in Central France, also a proteciton zone, which means that animals can move form one protection zone to another - this is the reason the Scottish Animal Health folk want to deley the Scottish vaccination programme till later in the year - because as soon as an area is designated a protection zone to allow vaccination then imports from other protection zones are allowed. It would be better if there was a lead in period to allow vaccinations to be done and working but this is not the case.

Duncan

[Penny]

I am staggered by this. As France has strain 1 as well as strain 8, we are really making ourselves vunerable by allowing imports to continue from these areas. Maybe I have just been too busy, and have not read the Farmers Guardian etc well enough recently to be aware of this.

[Sylvia]

Is it too much to ask that animals being imported into this country have a clean bill of health before they leave their country of origin?

[carole]

Just watched our local news only to be informed that BT (8) has been discovered in cows imported from Germany into a herd in Devon. Does make you wonder what checks are being made, Sylvia?
This on top of us having to inform our 'horsey' customers that there would be no small hay bales for them this year due to the weather. (We cut on Monday in the hope that there would be some bright weather this week, what a joke) All pretty depressing!

[Duncan MacIntyre]

The import of all these doubtfuls is due to the EU principle of free trade, and that testing should be done when they arrive at destination if required rather than being done before departure. I suppose those importing the animals could ask for them to be tested before they took them, but that is not the way the world works nowadays. Sometimes I wonder what good the EU does us at all. It certainly does not seem to have been better for agriculture than the old style support systems we had in the 1950's and 60's, the good old "deficiency payment" sort of thing. That operated on the principle that if you seel lambs in the market this week, they are graded as fat, and the average of all such sold this week is £1 short of the previously agreed target, then everyone gets a sub of £1. So those who got more than the average get the same sub as those who were below it, there is no "intervention" buying creating mountains which then have to be sold at a loss on the world market eventually. Much more practical. And in those days we could tell any other country to stuff their live imports.

Duncan

[Sylvia]

If you take an animal to market in this country you have to ensure that it is not only fit when it leaves your premises but remains fit throughout the journey, the time at the market and on the onward journey to its new home. If you fail to exercise this bit of awe inspiring foresight you could be fined £5000 or jailed for 6 months.

What mugs we British are.

While the rest of Europe cheerfully send us diseased animals with no penalties at all our own farmers are expected to jump through ever decreasing hoops to try to keep from getting a criminal record for inadvertently failing foul of one of the several thousand 'rules' which now govern British farming.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so damned serious.

[Duncan MacIntyre]

I doubt if the animals in question had obvious signs of disease when they left France. Almost any animal will be carrying some disease of some sort, our welfare reglulatons are a good thing but they are not to be confused with disease control. The lack of obvious signs in cattle infected with TB for example is what has spread bovine TB so much, not badgers. Lots of cattle pass through UK markets with IBR, BVD, etc etc quite unnoticed. A large number of dairy cows going through markets will carry mastitis bacteria.

Quarantine and testing for diseases which concern us can reduce risks, but at the end of the day there is always some risk in transferring animals from one place to another. Sometimes the risk is the reverse - the animals at the destination may have some infection, eg IBR, and pass this on the the purchased ones.

Even with quarantine and testing some long term disease like Johnes are particularly difficult to be sure an animal is free of. Some countries allow virtually no live imports at all.

Running a closed herd is one of the best things you can do for herd health, but it is very very difficult.

Duncan

[davidw]

My family has been involved in livestock exports and I was under the impression that stock had to be quarantined for 28 days and checked by a vet at least twice in that period before export. So why is that not being done?
Free trade of inert goods is one thing but livestock is totally different.
To answer my own question, related to food shipments, there is an EU concept named "equivalence" that assumes that if a regulation is applied in one EU country a similar regulation will be equally enforced in another EU country. Having witnessed certificates being sold in other countries, I feel this concept is dangerously simplistic.

[Broomcroft]

I don't know much or anything really about this, but we have just exported sheep to France and these had to be quarantined for 4 weeks or so. They were quarantined in the UK before export.