{"id":734601,"date":"2026-08-11T14:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T14:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734601\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T14:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T14:08:17","slug":"potentially-deadly-bluetongue-virus-found-in-scotland-for-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734601\/","title":{"rendered":"Potentially deadly bluetongue virus found in Scotland for first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The animal was tested for the disease after displaying symptoms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Signs of BTV3 include nasal discharge, redness and swelling of the lips, nose and muzzle, lameness or reluctance to stand, a decrease in milk production and diarrhoea in cattle. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It does not affect people or food safety but it causes a high rate of death in infected sheep and fertility problems in infected cattle. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The chief vet urged farmers to vaccinate their livestock against the disease.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said: &#8220;At this stage it is not possible to know if bluetongue is circulating in Scotland, or whether this is an individual case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The farm is under restriction while investigations, including testing other susceptible animals, are ongoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Vaccination remains the best way of preventing disease in animals and I encourage all farmers to discuss this with their vets.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BTV3 is a notifiable disease that must be reported to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/animal-and-plant-health-agency\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Animal and Plant Agency, external<\/a> in Scotland. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The animal was tested for the disease after displaying symptoms. Signs of BTV3 include nasal discharge, redness and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-734601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}