Vaccination against new herd fever: the State covers veterinary costs

Veterinary visits to animals suspected of having bluetongue (BTV), to detect or vaccinate them, are financially covered by the State, as are laboratory analyses, confirms a decree published in the Official Journal on Sunday, on the eve of the start of a vast vaccination plan.

Following the confirmation of three outbreaks of FCO of the new serotype 3 in the north of France, the Ministry of Agriculture indicated on Friday that the vaccination campaign would begin on Monday, for which it "is providing 6.4 million doses of vaccines free of charge"

"The State shall take charge of the following operations carried out by health veterinarians: visits to suspected animals and to the establishment aimed at diagnosing bluetongue, the acts necessary for the treatment of clinical suspicion, the census of animals present on the establishment, the prescription of health measures to be respected, the visit report and the corresponding certificates" indicates the order.

"The State covers the cost of analyses carried out in an approved laboratory for the samples," the text adds.

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This epizootic - or animal epidemic - transmitted by biting insects, began in the Netherlands in September 2023.

The virus then spread to Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom in just a few weeks.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, the number of outbreaks has increased sharply in recent days, reaching 308 in Belgium according to the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain on Thursday.

The first confirmed case in France was confirmed on Monday in Marpent (North), a few kilometers from Belgium.

Bluetongue, which is fatal to sheep, is also called "blue tongue disease". It manifests itself by fever, respiratory problems, a hanging tongue or even the loss of pregnant young. It also affects cattle, but with a much lower mortality rate, or sometimes deer.

It passes from an infected ruminant to an uninfected animal via Culicoides midges. Its detection does not lead to the euthanasia of animals, unlike avian flu.

FCO, which is not transmissible to humans, has also been present for years in France by serotypes 4 and 8 (in Corsica and mainland France); vaccines already existed for these serotypes, but thousands of unvaccinated sheep have died in recent weeks in the South.

French herds, on the other hand, have not developed any resistance to serotype 3, which they had never encountered.