News

Development and promotion of the BVD Management Toolkit to the veterinary profession

The steering committee has developed the BVD Management Toolkit to assist veterinarians set up control programmes with their clients. The Steering Committee, in partnership with MSD Animal Health ran a series of road-shows in June and July 2011.  These workshops were held at 16 venues -  11 dairy and 5 beef. The material has also been presented to 4th and 5th year veterinary students and their tutors at Massey University. In total, 360 veterinarians attended these roadshows which represents more than one third of all practising large animal veterinarians. This response shows there is a lot of interest in BVD and its control within the profession and that vets are looking for clear guidelines to help them control this important disease on farm. The management toolkit cuts through the complexity that is around BVD and provides a clear, four step process to follow:

Define BVD status of herd. Assess the biosecurity risks for the farm. Develop a management plan to mitigate these risks. Monitor for breakdowns.

The toolkit is now available on this website for downloading.

BVD Control forum

After the success of the BVD roadshows, and in a rapidly developing filed like BVD control, the BVD steering committee felt a more immediate way to share BVD related knowledge was needed. Google offers a free service allowing people with similar interests to set up an email forum for sharing information. Andrew Weir and Fraser Hill from the BVD steering committee have established a new group through google named:  http://groups.google.com/group/control-bvd-nz
We hope the forum will be used to discuss any aspect of BVD; e.g. cases, control measures, biosecurity concerns, vaccination, testing protocols, notifications about events or recent literature releases. Fraser and Andrew manage the group with input from the steering committee members. The group is limited to veterinarians and associated industry personnel with an interest in BVD. If you would like to participate in the discussions, send an email to fraser [dot] hill [at] gribbles [dot] co [dot] nz or Andrew [at] elthamvetservice [dot] co [dot] nz to find out how to sign up.

Implications of withdrawal of PregSure on BVD control in NZ

The use of BVD vaccines that provide foetal protection is likely to be an important part of developing a sound BVD control programme on many farms. Untill recently, there have been two vaccines available to NZ veterinarians that have registered claims for foetal protection – Bovilis BVD and PregSure. However, PregSure has been recently withdrawn from the NZ market due to its association with the bovine neonatal pancytopaenia syndrome (BNP) in calves born from previously vaccinated dams.

The Steering Committee make the following statement regarding the implications of this development on controling BVD on NZ dairy and beef farms.

The Steering Committee believes that any cows that have been correctly vaccinated with PregSure recently, will provide foetal protection for calves yet to be born. In the event of calves less than 4 weeks of age exhibiting multiple internal or external haemorrhages, ± sudden death, we advise you to consider BNP syndrome in the differential diagnosis. Any suspected cases of the BNP syndrome should be referred to Pfizer Animal Health (0800 100109) and MAF Exotic Disease Hotline (0800 809966). The association between BNP syndrome and BVDv vaccination is only relevant to PregSure. It has been clearly demonstrated that vaccinating cows with Bovilis BVD does not run any risk of BNP in their calves.

MSD Animal Health have put in place a vaccine supply strategy and have advised us that as long as the veterinary profession is patient and behaves in a professional manner, they will be able to meet the market demand this season with Bovilis BVD vaccine. They advise us that many clinics have already forward ordered vaccine. If you have any issues you would like to address about vaccine availability please speak to your local MSD Animal Health Territory Manager in the first instance.

In view of this, the withdrawal of PregSure from the market should have minimal effect on your ability to instigate and manage BVD management plans on your clients’ farms.  

New Steering Committee member

Andrew Bates, Vetlife, Temuka, has recently agreed to join the Steering Committee. Andrew gives the committee representation from the South Island, and, as a consequence, an insight into controlling BVD in large dairy herds. The committee recognises that controlling BVD in large herds may have some unique challenges not so apparent in smaller herds.  Andrew also has considerable experience at providing quality cpd to practice veterinarians and developing new products and services for the practice. Both these skills will be valuable assets for the committee as it extends its control promotion to more veterinarians and farmers.