BVDV Technical Advisory Group announce high cost of disease – BVDV hits hard
Date: 10 January 2008
It can cost an Australian cattle producer $60,000 and take 8 years to get over the ‘first hit’ of infection with Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus (BVDV, Bovine Pestivirus), if your herd has no immunity to BVDV, and becomes exposed from an outside source.
These figures represent the economic impact of a BVDV outbreak in a 250 cow, self replacing beef herd in Southern Australia, and amounts to an average annual loss of $30 per cow.
“At least one in ten beef herds maybe at risk of experiencing this high level of loss,” says Prof. Michael McGowan, Chair of the BVDV Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and Professor of Livestock Medicine in the School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland.
The new data comes from the BVDV TAG, a group of leading veterinary researchers and practising veterinarians who provide services to dairy and beef herds and feedlots across Australia, and Dr Phil Holmes, a research veterinarian with a special interest in disease modelling.
“Estimating the economic impact of an outbreak of BVDV in an immunologically naïve beef herd is the first of many scenarios using dynamic system modelling,” says Prof McGowan.
“What’s good about this system is that it’s ‘fluid’ and allows current cattle practices, and different herd set ups to be modelled”, explained Phil Holmes. Our next step is to asses the economic impact of this disease in herds where BVDV is endemic, chronic infection is present, or where BVDV herd status is unknown, for both the beef and dairy industry in different regions throughout Australia.
Determining herd status, or the level of BVDV infection in a herd using serological profiling is becoming more common, and is being encouraged as a first step in a management program for BVDV. The BVDV serology testing campaign, a Pfizer Australia-wide initiative for producers, coordinated by Dr Lee Taylor (PAH veterinarian) has found that from the 100 beef and dairy herds tested so far, 80% of herds have active BVDV infection and this is more likely to be in younger cattle (1–2 year olds). The Pfizer program aims to determine if a herd is likely to be infected with BVDV based on targeted testing of small number of animals from specific age groups of heifers and cows.
“We expected this high level of infection – it agrees with what has been found in earlier surveys for BVDV,” says Dr Peter Kirkland, TAG member and Principle Research Scientist, Virology Laboratory, Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, NSW, where the testing of over 2,300 blood samples from the 100 herds surveyed, has so far been carried out.
Despite this apparently high level of infection, there are still herds that can be easily identified which appear free of BVDV infection, which means they are susceptible to BVDV infection from outside sources. In 10% of all herds tested, all sampled animals were negative i.e. no evidence of previous exposure to BVDV and thus susceptible to infection.
More herds are due to be tested, comments Peter Kirkland, and together with herd histories, essential for accurate serological profiling, this will help us get an insight into the extent of the problem and the best options for control of BVDV.
Guidance for sampling and testing protocols, and control measures are outlined in the Australian guidelines for the investigation and control of BVDV in beef and dairy herds, and feedlots, developed by the BVDV TAG.
The BVDV TAG is also actively involved in a number of ongoing research projects and field trials, aimed at effectively managing this disease. These include the Pestigard® heifer vaccination trial (Professor Michael McGowan, Dr John Morton and Dr Nancy Phillips), the MLA funded Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) project (Dr John Morton and Prof Michael McGowan) and the impact of persistently infected (PI) animals in feedlots (Dr Enoch Bergman).
For more information please contact Pfizer Technical Services on 1800 814 883 or Email: australia.animalhealth@pfizer.com