- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hello!
I have just finished a mammoth catch up on the Archers over April so thought I’d log in to see what people had been talking about and I saw this post!
The problem with IBR is that it can result in latently infected animals – so animals that carry the virus and can infect other cows but do not show any signs themselves. A latently infected cow usually does not shed the virus all the time, it can be influenced by lots of environmental and immunological factors, but when the virus reactivates it will become infectious to other cows. If these cows have not been vaccinated (which you would not do routinely if you had a closed herd with all new animals coming in being checked) they will become infected and will show clinical signs (runny nose, lower milk production, abortion etc).
Most of these animals will go on to recover from the virus but some will become latently infected and so be able to infect other animals in the future…and so the cycle continues.
Hope that helps make sense of it! Happy to (try to!) answer any other vetty questions!
Ellen the vet from Glasgow x
Fantastic stuff, thanks Ellen.
So if you have a latent infection, is your only option to cull the animals? It seems as though vaccinating when they’re already infected won’t help remove the infection from the latently infected ones, just prevent it spreading to any uninfected herd members? If you have to write off any infected animals I can see how the cost to all affected would be quite high.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.