No major outbreak but Bluetongue concerns remain for - leatherbiz: Lea Leatherbiz

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No major outbreak but Bluetongue concerns remain for Australian cattle industry

24/10/2016
Opportunities are still in place for Australian livestock farmers to export live animals to China following a deal agreed between the two trading partners last year. However, industry experts in Australia have expressed concern about the volume of Australian cattle being reared on the ‘wrong’ side of “the Bluetongue Line”.

Bluetongue is an insect-borne, viral disease that can affect sheep, goats, deer and cattle. A number of bluetongue serotypes are present in Australia, but no severe outbreak has occurred in Australia up till now. People are not affected by the virus, but at the time of agreeing the 2015 deal, the authorities in China expressed concerns about the possibility of live Australian cattle passing the virus to Chinese sheep.

Industry promotions body Meat and Livestock Australia has now calculated that 60% of Australia’s cattle herd, which is to say 14.7 million head out of a total of 24.6 million head, are on the ‘wrong’ side of The Bluetongue Line, indicating that transmission of the virus from these animals is a possibility. Queensland is the state with the largest number of these animals.



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