The nightmare is back Blue Tonguethe catarrhal fever of sheep, in Italy. After the epidemic in Sardinia last year and in the north last autumn, now it seems to be the turn of Brands And Abruzzo.
There blue tongue It is a disease transmitted to ruminants by an insect, such a midinum Culicoidswhich does not affect man and does not infect milk and meat but can still cause the death of the animal.
The spread of the disease necessarily leads to a drop in milk production and the blocking of the handling of flocks and herds, with economic damage for companies.
Blue language in the Marche
The Virus of the blue tongue has spread even in about thirty farms Marches all sheep, except one from Alpaca and another of Yak.
According to Flavia Carle, director of the regional health agency, the councilors for health and agriculture would be preparing a campaign for vaccines. They will be provided free of charge to breeders. Vaccines that were no longer mandatory, given in recent years the disease had almost disappeared.
And in Abruzzo
A health alert was also taken in Abruzzo for the spread of the Blue Tongue in limited areas of the provinces of L’Aquila and Teramo.
An immediate vaccination plan and a specific compensation for the purchase of all the doses of vaccine: a centuries -old economy is at risk that must be protected and safeguarded with speed and determination, the request for Coldiretti Abruzzo.
What is the blue language virus and how it is transmitted
It is a non -contagious infectious disease of ruminants, transmitted by insects hematophagi vectors (culicoids), caused by an RNA family virus virus Reoviridaetype Orbivirusof which 27 different serotypes are known. The transmission from one animal to another takes place through the puncture of these midges, whose reproduction and the deposition of eggs takes place in muddy, natural (rainbow pools, margins of waterways) and artificial (irrigated fields, bangs of sites).
The virus mainly affects the sheep that present symptoms ranging from fever, to the edema of the head and congestion of the mucous membranes of the mouth. In the most serious cases the language, enlarged and cyanotic, comes out of the mouth, hence the name given to the virus. The disease can also cause fetal malformations and abortions and lead to the death of animals. It is good to clarify that this infection does not represent a danger to man, which cannot be infected: there is no risk of contracting the disease neither by contact nor through the consumption of milk and meat.
