Farming News - Veterinary chief issues warning over cuts to disease surveillance

Veterinary chief issues warning over cuts to disease surveillance

Carl Padgett, president of the British Veterinary Association, has warned Defra that cuts to veterinary surveillance systems will impact on Britain’s ability to detect and respond to emerging threats and diseases. The BVA president, who issued his warning in London this week, said that the emergence of Schmallenberg virus pointed out just how vital adequate surveillance systems are to farming and public health in the UK.

 

Scientists have warned that both new diseases and some already identified elsewhere in the world, which may spread as a result of insect populations moving further north, will become an increasingly pressing problem as climate change worsens. It is thought that the Bluetongue Virus, which was wiped out in the UK last year after having spread from Southern Europe, spread north in this way.

 

The veterinary chief warned against plans to privatise testing for diseases, especially bovine TB, which comes at a time when Defra is planning large-scale action to combat the disease. He warned there could be “unintended consequences” of farming out bTB testing contracts to private vets.

 

He said the government had given mixed messages over its plans for the network of disease surveillance centres, having first announced there would be a significant reshuffle, then stating that a review group would look at disease surveillance. Padgett recommended Defra “Slow down” and carefully consider the possible outcomes of recommendations the review group makes.

 

He presaged, “Decisions made now will impact on our future ability to deliver that first line of defence and if we lose the infrastructure of our veterinary surveillance system it will almost certainly be impossible to rebuild.”

 

The BVA president said that, thanks to the UK and Europe’s network of animal health laboratories, scientists are learning more each day about Schmallenberg Virus, which was only identified in November 2011, and that this would eventually lead to a cohesive policy to combat the disease. He said, “We are learning more about this virus, how it has spread and how it will impact on the UK’s herds and flocks.”

 

SBV has infected well over 1,000 farms throughout Northern Europe, with cases on farms from Gloucester to Northern Italy. In the UK, SBV has been identified on 121 farms within an ‘at risk’ zone the South of England.  

 

The disease, which is believed to have emerged in Summer 2011, has led to bans on imports of animal products from affected regions by Kazakhstan, Russia, Mexico and India. From the beginning of March, Kazakhstan banned imports of cattle from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France over high rates of the new disease.