Bluetongue vaccine stocks essential before summer

The National Beef Association (NBA) has written to Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead calling for an urgent meeting at which it will ask the Scottish Government to buy stocks of bluetongue vaccine.

The move comes after the NBA's Scottish council unanimously agreed that without access to suitable quantities of vaccine, Scotland would be unable to protect itself against a virus that could create severe economic and welfare problems for all livestock farmers.

"If there is a fire, there has to be a fire extinguisher, and if wind-blown midges are the carriers of a virus that has been, and will again be, circulating perilously close to Scotland, it is no good relying on lines on the map for protection," explained NBA Scotland chairman, Iain Mathers.