Bluetongue hits record 3,472 cases as Britain's farms reel

Britain has just stumbled through its worst bluetongue season on record, and MPs were told it amounted to a major animal welfare crisis. Since July, 3,472 cases have been confirmed across England, Scotland and Wales. That is more than five times the total from the previous three seasons combined.

The culprit is a viral disease that strikes sheep, cattle and goats, bringing fever, lesions, stillbirths and death, with the tongue sometimes turning blue and protruding from the mouth. It spreads through biting midges, and the World Organisation for Animal Health has linked the virus's two-decade push into Europe to climate breakdown. The strain doing the damage now, serotype 3, was first detected in England in 2023.

The south-west is bearing the brunt. Devon has logged 1,291 cases, Somerset 373 and Cornwall 352. Those figures understate the real toll: the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs counts a case as a premises with at least one infected animal, so the actual number of sick livestock is likely higher.

Catherine McLaughlin, chief animal health and welfare adviser at the National Farmers Union, told MPs that farmers are under severe emotional pressure and stress. She ran through the wreckage: dead animals, reproductive losses, lost milk and growth, extra labour, veterinary bills, and disrupted breeding and sales. The hit to fertility could stick around, she warned, with many farms facing very few lambs in spring and a heavy financial blow.

Dr Gwen Rees, president of the British Veterinary Association, said there is no direct treatment for bluetongue, leaving vets with little to offer beyond supportive care and hope. She called it a major animal welfare crisis. The cost of vaccination, plus uncertainty over the risk of infection, kept some farmers from immunising their herds before the outbreak took hold.

Farmers and vets are constantly weighing risk against reward, Rees told MPs, and investing just in case is a hard sell when margins are already tight. Bluetongue vaccine, she noted, is not cheap.