11/6/2012

Denmark declares the first outbreak of the Schmallenberg disease.

The first season of occurrence of the Schmallenberg disease (SBD) is coming to an end. In fact, on June 1, the eight affected countries declared the resolution of the nearly 3,500 outbreaks suffered from December 2011 to May 2012 in sheep, cattle and goats (Figure 1). 

Fig. 1: Number of outbreaks of Schmallenberg disease in the eight European countries affected until June 11th, 2012 (Source: self elaboration based on data in WAHID-OIE). In detail, the purple star denotes the first Schmallenberg disease outbreak in cattle in Fyn (Denmark); the blue cross indicates the first seropositive animals in Jutland.

 

However, on June 6, Denmark declared the first case of SBD on the island of Funen (Figure 1, detail). This case appeared in a cattle holding in Fyn, where a fetus born with compatible malformations appeared, and the virus could be detected by PCR. No symptoms in adult animals were detected in the holding during autumn 2011, but the mother presented  antibodies against the virus.

Although this is the first confirmed case in Denmark, a total of 56 animals have come to study as compatible cases, but only this one has tested positive to the PCR. In addition, a few weeks before antibodies were detected in two cattle from a farm in Jutland (Figure 1, detail). Furthermore, the virus was detected in pools of Culicoides midges (unspecified species) collected in October 2011.

All these evidences suggest that, like the serotype 8 bluetongue virus, the Schmallenberg virus has been circulating over Europe up to quite northern latitudes. Further studies are needed to understand how this pathogen is transmitted.

Source: http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/

 

Víctor Rodríguez Prieto & José Manuel Sánchez-Vizcaíno
SUAT-UCM

 

Section of sanidadnimal.info dedicated to Schmallenberg virus (SBV)