Bluetongue animal vaccination starts in most of EU

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU farmers have mostly startedvaccinating animals against bluetongue, the virus that ravagednorthern Europe's cattle and sheep in 2007, but success dependson vaccine supply and speed of applying it, officials say.

Bluetongue swept across around 11 EU countries last yearand struck again recently in parts of Italy and France aswarmer weather took hold in central and northern Europe.

Spread by midges, the virus had previously tended to occurin more southerly EU regions until 2006, when it moved furthernorth. Bluetongue does not affect humans and there is no riskof contracting it by consuming milk or meat from affectedanimals.

Whether vaccination is compulsory or voluntary is decidedper country but many have made vaccination of younger cattleand ovine animals compulsory. Vaccination plans have now begunin most countries where animals have been affected, officialssay.

Some countries, like Belgium, Luxembourg and the CzechRepublic, have made their entire national territories subjectto compulsory vaccination for certain animal categories.

Last month, the EU's health chief warned national ministersthat farmers would not have an easy time in the fight againstbluetongue this year as the disease situation continued toevolve with new outbreaks in countries like France and Italy.

"The situation will be bad in the newly infected areasunless they manage to vaccinate before mid-June," one officialat the European Commission said.

"In heavily infected areas, the situation will be betterthan last year as most of the adult population was infectedlast year and is better protected now," the official said,adding that newborn animals were still at risk if notvaccinated quickly.

DIFFERENT STRAINS

The disease comes in different strains, or serotypes: inmore southerly countries serotype 1 has been prevalent; whilein northerly areas serotype 8 -- for which a vaccine has onlyrecently become available -- has dominated.

But there is some crossover, especially in France, and thishas worried many experts.

"There are problems in France with serotype 1 ... whichisn't as bad as serotype 8, it behaves more like a"traditional" bluetongue type: very few symptoms in cattle andit's worse for sheep," one official at a national farmers'organisation said.

"But those areas are crossing and they don't have muchvaccine. Britain is about the only country with enoughvaccine," he said. "It's all about timing ... and there arestill a lot of animals out there that won't have had thedisease last year."

The bluetongue virus is characterised by inflammation ofthe mucous membranes, congestion, swelling and haemorrhages.

Sheep are often the worst affected animals, suffering frombreathing problems, lameness, drooling and high bodytemperatures. In some cases, the animal's tongue turns blue.

(Editing by Peter Blackburn)