At least one company is developing a vaccine against the bluetongue virus. This was said by outgoing Agriculture Minister Piet Adema in the House of Representatives on Thursday. “I will speed up the authorization processes so that a safe and effective vaccine will hopefully be available before the midge season in the middle of this year.”
Adema cannot say which company or companies are involved “due to the high sensitivity to competition”. He is in discussions about the vaccines with ten vaccine manufacturers in Europe. “All the steps taken so far in this process are going well, but we are not there yet.”
“Vaccination against the bluetongue virus is the way out of the situation the Netherlands finds itself in,” said Adema. The virus was diagnosed at thousands of livestock farms last year, which kills many sheep in particular.
The virus mainly affects sheep, which often do not survive an infection. More than 5 percent of the sheep population has died, Adema wrote in November about the outbreak of the virus. The ministry also sees deaths in cattle and “other animal species such as goats.”