Cumbrian farmers warned to remain vigilant as Blue Tongue hits Europe
Cases have been identified in France and the Netherlands.
Blue tongue, a contagious disease found amongst cattle, sheep and goats has been identified in several countries, including France.
Also known as Epizootic Haemorrhagic disease, it causes animals great discomfort, swelling of the tongue and difficulties eating, often leading to death. The disease is also easily transmitted between animals.
The UK Government's department for environment, food and rural affairs in a report described the outbreak: "EHD has now been confirmed in southern France after crossing the Pyrenees mountainswhich border Spain. This is significant because now that EHDV has crossed the Pyrenees mountains there is greater potential for spread across mainland Europe towards Great Britain...
"There have been consignments of live cattle and sheep scheduled to arrive in Great Britain from France in recent weeks. Back tracing is being conducted to identify any consignments of live ruminants and ruminant germplasm from France over the past 28 days and trade of live ruminants from France is postponed as they are no longer able to comply with relevant animal health certificates.
"Additionally, there have been no trade consignments of live cattle or sheep received in Great Britain from Portugal, Sardinia, Sicily, or Spain since 1 September 2022."
Despite the reassurance that trade has been suspended for now between the UK and France, the NFU in Cumbria are still urging farmers to remain vigilant.
John Longmire from the organisation said: "It's not very prevelant or noticeable in cattle, but in sheep you get a great swelling of the tongue, there's a lot of saliva about and it makes it very difficult to eat and they get a sick tummy.
"There is illnesses amongst sheep all the time but with blue tongue there isn't really a cure for it, it's more vaccinations to make sure it doesn't get it in the first place. It's a nasty disease that can run through flocks and herds.
"It can lead to the closing down of trade as you've got some very sick animals that don't do as well so you've got restrictions in the movements to a certain extent. It's not a total shut down of trade but nobody wants to buy sheep or cattle with the blue tongue virus."