Outgoing Agriculture Minister Piet Adema (CU) wants a “safe and effective vaccine” against the bluetongue virus to be available as soon as possible. In any case, that vaccine must be available before the new midge season, halfway through next year. The midge is a small gadfly that transmits the bluetongue virus.
The outgoing minister has made 120,000 euros available to Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR), so that it can create a model where pharmaceutical companies can test their vaccine, Adema wrote to the House of Representatives.
There is currently no suitable and authorized vaccine in the Netherlands and the European Union. If there is a ‘candidate vaccine’, Adema wants to accelerate the assessment and admission procedure. But an accelerated assessment must also take into account that a vaccine will only become available after at least six months, the minister warns. According to Adema, a normal procedure takes a year and a half.
The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) reported on Monday that bluetongue has been detected on more than 5,300 livestock farms, and in almost four thousand cases the blood of the animals has been tested in a laboratory. In Drenthe, the virus has been detected by blood tests at 270 companies.
Nationally, the number has now risen to 5,500 livestock farms, Adema writes. “Unfortunately, the number of infections is still increasing,” Adema wrote to the House. “Although we have seen a decrease in the number of reports in recent days. The hope and expectation is that this decline will continue in the coming period.”
The virus mainly affects sheep, which often do not survive an infection. In the recent period, more than 5 percent of the sheep population has died, Adema writes. The ministry also sees deaths in cattle and “other animal species such as goats.”