CLA welcomes news that Bluetongue Vaccine has been licensed

It has been confirmed that animal health company Intervet has been granted a licence by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate for its vaccine for Bluetongue Virus serotype 8. This means that the vaccine can go into production and should shortly be available to English farmers.

Angus Collingwood-Cameron, CLA North East Director, said: "We welcome this news and congratulate all those involved in obtaining and granting the licence, as they have brought the vaccine to market in a very short time. The vaccine will not initially be available to North East farmers as early batches will be deployed in the Protection Zone, but we will be keeping our Members informed as supplies become available.

"The CLA will be urging all Members with susceptible livestock to deploy the vaccine. If this can be done in a short time scale, the spread of this disease may be halted. It is possible that the UK livestock industry could avoid the devastation caused by BTV in northern Europe last year, where tens of thousands of farms were infected.

"The cost of the vaccine has not yet been confirmed, but initial indications suggest that it will be negligible when compared to current livestock prices, and even to the cost of collection of a single dead animal."