Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium call for efforts at European level to develop a vaccine against bluetongue serotype 3

Recently, the national reference laboratory for bluetongue disease in Germany confirmed the first infection with serotype 3 of the disease in the country on a sheep farm in the district of Kleve, North Rhine-Westphalia. This outbreak was added to those detected in the Netherlands at the beginning of September in the provinces of North Holland and Utrecht, after which it has spread rapidly. To date, they have been identified on thousands of farms, the majority on sheep farms. The disease has also been detected in Belgium. This marks the first appearance of bluetongue serotype 3 in the region. And in Europe until now it had only been discovered in southern Italy. Other countries with the disease include Tunisia, Israel and much of southern Africa. This serotype is not present in Spain, for which there is no vaccine, and cases of serotypes 1, 4 and 8 have been detected. Faced with this situation, the Ministers of Agriculture of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, Cem Özdemir, Piet ...