The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) has confirmed that the number of bluetongue cases in Great Britain (GB) has risen to 318.
In England, there have been 296 cases of bluetongue – including 287 cases of BTV-3, two cases of BTV-8 and seven cases with both BTV-3 and BTV-8.
The whole of England remains in a bluetongue restricted zone.
Separately in Wales, there have been 22 cases of BTV-3 while there have been no cases in Scotland. There are currently five confirmed cases of BTV-3 in Northern Ireland.
Due to confirmed bluetongue cases in GB, the “direct movement of all live ruminants and camelids from GB to Northern Ireland (NI) is suspended”.
Defra has provided an update on further “suspicious clinical signs” that have been identified in England as a result of new cases of bluetongue this month.
One of these included a newborn calf in Devon born “with no brain tissue” and two cows – one was the calf’s dam.
Separately a calf in Cumbria was found with “brain cavitation on postmortem” while a cow was tested following the birth of its calf in Staffordshire born with lesions on tongue.
Defra has also detailed that one calf in Cornwall was born blind and with neurological signs while several other calves with similar clinical signs were not tested.
There were also an addiitional two calves born in Cornwall with neurological signs and one cow -dam of the twin calves – also tested positive.
Bluetongue cases
Fertilility issues remain a common theme in relation to confirmed cases of bluetongue, according to Defra.
The department has reported cases of abortions in herds and also barren cows following testing.
It has advised that because temperatures remain low, experts consider the risk of onward spread by vectors in England to be “negligible”.
“There is however still a risk that animals can get infected from infected germinal products.
“The risk of incursion of bluetongue virus, including serotypes not currently circulating in England, from all routes remains at medium (occurs regularly) although the risk of airborne incursion is now negligible,” Defra stated.
