Bluetongue survey issued after high risk warning

Livestock farmers with experience of the midge-driven bluetongue virus are urged to help in a charity knowledge initiative after a government warning about its spread.

Researchers at the James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, will donate £5 to a farming charity for every farmer that completes a 10-minute survey on the virus.

See also: What can be done to prevent bluetongue virus?

This comes after the November 2023 disease recordings and an Animal and Plant Health Authority statement that said the UK was at “very high risk” of an outbreak. 

The online survey is designed to help scientists to figure out how to minimise the impacts of the costly virus. 

Disease spread

Bluetongue virus (BTV) was first identified in the UK in 2007, when livestock from 135 farms tested positive through serology as part of an outbreak that affected northern Europe.

More UK BTV cases were reported in the winter of 2023-24, with 126 cases on 73 premises in Kent, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Scientists say higher rainfall and temperatures are creating ideal conditions for the insect-borne disease, which is transferred on the Culicoides midge.

Defra has reassured farmers there is no evidence that BTV is currently circulating in biting midges in Great Britain.