Thousands of Sheep, Goats, and Cattle Being Killed By 'Mystery Virus'

New Animal Virus Takes Europe by Surprise, Now Threatening British Farms

Source: Dateline Zero 

British news agencies are reporting that price of lamb is set to soar, and farmers are helpless to stop it.

“We are taking this very, very seriously,” says Thomas Mettenleiter, head of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute (FLI), the German federal animal health lab located on the island of Riems. Fetuses that were exposed to the virus in the womb are born with deformities, and most are born dead. “In some herds 20% to 50% of lambs show such malformations,” Mettenleiter says. “And most of these animals are born dead.”

The virus was only reported in November of 2011, and now British farms are being hit hard with it. The big problem is this: If animals are just now being born dead and deformed because of this “mystery virus,” that means the virus has already been spreading months ago. So how far has it spread, and how could it be stopped?

“MYSTERY VIRUS”

A headline at The Telegraph says that a “mystery virus” is killing the lambs. However, the first sentence of the article reads: “The Schmallenberg virus causes lambs to be born dead or with serious deformities such as fused limbs and twisted necks, which mean they cannot survive.”

The Schmallenberg virus? So they know the name of the virus. They also now that it likely came from Europe on infected midges which swarmed across the North Sea last summer and autumn. They know, too, that it causes deformities in livestock, and is known to infect cattle, sheep, and goats.

So how is it a “mystery virus”?

The mystery is that experts aren’t quite sure how it spreads and how to fight it. The Schmallenberg virus is a newly discovered virus. In fact, that name is an informal name given to it — Schmallenberg, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is where the first definitive sample was derived in late 2011.

Science Mag reports that questions that remain unanswered include: Can animals infect each other directly? Where did the virus come from? And can it infect humans?

A dangerous aspect of this virus was pointed out by Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany. “Their segmented genome makes the emergence of new combinations very easy, just like with influenza viruses,” Schmidt-Chanasit told Science Mag.

Meanwhile, the number of farms affected increases by the day.

ARE HUMANS AT RISK?

Whether the Schmallenberg virus could sicken humans is unknown. The Daily Mail reports that the virus is “unlikely” to cause illnesses in people, but because this is a new virus, researchers are working to verify whether humans are at risk.

Catherine McLaughlin, National Farmers’ Union animal health and welfare adviser, explained: “This is still a relatively new virus, it is a developing situation and it’s difficult to predict the scale of the problems. We are continuing to work closely with colleagues at the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency and the UK and EU scientific communities to learn as much as quickly as possible.”

More: Full post at Dateline Zero