THE DEPARTMENT of Agriculture has confirmed it is in discussion with the manufacturers of a new vaccine for bluetongue disease to protect the Irish herd.
Bluetongue, a wasting disease in cattle, sheep and goats which is carried by midges, is continuing to spread across Britain.
A new case confirmed yesterday in Surrey has led to the extension of an EU protection zone in which no animals can be moved.
The EU regulation has extended the surveillance zone required to control the disease, to most of England, which is creating difficulties for live cattle exporters to the continent.
Italy, for instance, has made a unilateral decision not to accept animals which have to pass through an infected area and this has led to major disruption of live animal movement on the continent.
However, this has not affected Irish exports as the main trade is in calves going directly to northern Europe. The trade in older calves, weanlings, begins later in the year to Spain and Italy.
The EU this week brought in new regulations to ease the difficulties of animal movement, ruling that animals to be moved from restricted zones into bluetongue-free areas are either vaccinated or shown to be naturally immunised.
However, for calves under 90 days old that are too young to be vaccinated, movements from restricted zones can take place without vaccination, on the condition that the animals are kept confined to prevent infection from vectors.