Zoe Lloyd is an animal health and welfare scientist at the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB), an independent public body paid for by farmers.<\/p>\n
“Bluetongue can have a devastating impact on mental health,” Lloyd said, noting that “farmers are facing some really difficult decisions.”<\/p>\n
Farmers have also been dealing with “a range of other challenges,” including drought, she continued, adding that “the bluetongue outbreak definitely adds another layer of pressure.”<\/p>\n
As well as the toll on farmers themselves, it also “can have really devastating impacts on livestock health and welfare,” Lloyd said.<\/p>\n
“We cannot stress enough the seriousness of the situation,” she stated, adding that farmers should speak to their vets “as soon as possible” about vaccination.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Defra said “animal keepers and vets who are on the frontline of this disease” were facing “an incredibly difficult time.”<\/p>\n
“We are monitoring the situation closely,” they continued, adding that “vaccination is the best tool available to prevent bluetongue”.<\/p>\n
“We are working with vaccine manufacturers to increase vaccine supplies so that farmers who have not already done so can vaccinate their livestock.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zoe Lloyd is an animal health and welfare scientist at the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB), an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-751329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751329","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=751329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}