Mystery virus kills thousands of lambs

[FarCenter]

The Schmallenberg virus causes lambs to be born dead or with serious deformities such as fused limbs and twisted necks, which mean they cannot survive. Scientists are urgently trying to find out how the disease, which also affects cattle, spreads and how to fight it, as the number of farms affected increases by the day.

So far, 74 farms across southern and eastern England have been hit by the virus, which arrived in this country in January. A thousand farms in Europe have reported cases since the first signs of the virus were seen in the German town of Schmallenberg last summer.

...

...
Infected ewes do not show any symptoms of the virus until they give birth, with horrific results. Farmers have described delivering the deformed and stillborn animals as heartbreaking. The lambing season has only just begun, which means that the full impact of the disease will not be felt until the weather warms up and millions more animals are born. On the Continent, some farms have lost half of their lambs. So far the worst hit in Britain have lost 20 per cent, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

The AHVLA identifies Schmallenberg as one of a group of viruses “typically primarily spread by biting insect vectors, such as midges and mosquitoes, although the routes of Schmallenberg virus transmission have not yet been confirmed. The potential for direct transmission (ie direct from one animal to another) is therefore, as yet, unknown.” It said: “There is unlikely to be a risk to human health from Schmallenberg virus; but this is not yet certain.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9106270/Mystery-virus-kills-thousands-of-lambs.html

[hedgehog]

1. This is an example of why we need to broaden our breeding lines

rather than to invest in cloning our food animals!

[knitter4democracy]

2. This. All kinds of this.

We have lost many sheep breeds due to mechanization of the slaughtering process and scouring/spinning process. It sounds like this is crossing breedlines, as England has many different breeds and not many merinos, and the Continent tends to raise different breeds, but honestly, we need to also investigate which breeds don't seem to be succumbing to this.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. It probably affects all breeds of sheep, since it can also affect cattle and goats

http://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/schmallenberg-virus/

The Telegraph article says cattle are more resistant to it, but, with a longer gestation period, they're going to have to wait to find if the outbreak has had a significant effect on them.

[Devil_Fish]

3. could this be due to fall out from Fucushima? or perhaps some of the millions of tons of DU dropped

in Iraq and Afganistan????

[FarCenter]

4. I'd think unlikely -- this is a variant of a family of viruses and like flu, they change with time

The bunyaviruses are one of a couple of the groups of RNA viruses (negative sense RNA viruses to precise). They are spherical viruses (see above) whose genomes are shared across three chromosomes composed of RNA and protein (gold in the picture): they have a large (L) segment, a medium one (M) and a small one (S). This is much like influenza which has eight different genetic segments but the more parts a virus has the more worried we get: with this comes the chance for mixing up of the different genes which can result in very rapid evolution. These viruses are one of the most successful pathogens out there and a number of them even cause serious disease in humans. For example: Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, spread by ticks, causes serious bleeding, respiratory problems and neurological dysfunction. And just in 2009, a Chinese group discovered that one of these viruses was the cause behind the deadly "Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome".


The scientists stress that the risk of Schmallenberg to humans is minimal as none of the closely related bunyaviruses are able to infect us. But still they suggest that farmers and vets use appropriate hygiene measures when dealing with infected animals. Although, to date nobody has reported being infected but then nobody has looked so as we develop appropriate tests we may detect that many farmers have actually been infected.

From http://ruleof6ix.fieldofscience.com/2012/02/uk-meet-schmallenberg-virus.html

[Tumbulu]

5. how sad for all involved

My neighbors down the road who also keep organic sheep (theirs are a mix of breeds) had a bacteria get into the food supply (we have been having a drought and have had to feed way more hay than we normally do here) that caused the ewes to dry abort. This meant my friend had to pull every single stillborn lamb without the benefit of the normal fluids or the lamb helping in any way. Every day for two weeks all day long she was pulling lambs she said. She was so depressed! The vet took lots of blood samples and the cause is still being figured out.

I am so lucky, the result of my bad hay were 12 dumped lambs that I have been bottle feeding- 4x the normal dumped lamb rate, but at least no horror stories like these.

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. Echos of 'German Measles', Thalidomide or

the rubella epidemics

http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/rubella