Bluetongue disease, which affects small livestock, has become widespread in Europe.
At the end of the summer it also appeared in animal stalls in the south of Albania. Veterinarian epidemiologist, Kujtim Mërsini, blue tongue is spread by mosquitoes and can only be stopped by vaccination.
“The only way to put the disease under control the disease for the conditions inAlbania. is for the cattle to stay in the stables at night, because the spreading insect is activated in the evening and the windows of the stables should must be netted”, says Mërsini.
“Yes, there is a vaccine that is produced for this disease, we have stereotype 4, there is a bivalent inactive vaccine that can be applied to animals, but it is not yet in Albania. Hopefully we will have it next year.”
As a result of this disease 6 years ago thousands of sheep died, while there was compensation for farmers of about 10 million lek. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is collecting data on how many cattle have been infected and how many of them died.
“The disease has been circulating in Albania since 2014-2016, it is an epidemic outbreak since two years here. In this period 10 thousand heads of livestock died and 260 thousand were affected, so the extent was quite big and the mortality was high “, adds the epidemiologist.
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