Bluetongue, MHE... French farmers weakened by three sheep epidemics

Bluetongue, MHE… French farmers weakened by three sheep epidemics

Luciole is the last to enter the milking parlor. The 9 year old cow moves slowly and with difficulty. Her hips, much more protruding than the others, reflect an apparent fragility. The prim’holstein caught bluetongue (BCF) a few days ago, a disease – not contagious to humans – transmitted by a midge and can affect cattle, such as sheep and goats. The symptoms followed quickly: fever, intense fatigue… even respiratory distress. “Sunday I found her lying on the straw, I thought she wouldn’t make it through the night,” explains Nicolas Bosc, breeder in Saint-André-de-Najac, in Aveyron. Luciole survived, but not without after-effects. The cow lost nearly 80 kg in less than a week. Since the end of August, Nicolas Bosc has seen a wave of fever sweep through his livestock. Out of 45 dairy cows, eight were affected. Two died.

Midges and flowers

For the past year, three viruses have been rampant in the territory: two variants of bluetongue, detected in August 2023 and 2024, as well as epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EMD), detected in September 2023. Jonathan Nondier finds himself particularly affected. This farmer from Moselle has already lost 10% of his flock of sheep. The breeder had not experienced such an episode since 2006, when FCO appeared in France. “My father had lost 20% of his livestock,” he remembers. Our animals are not prepared for these diseases: they do not have suitable immune defenses. »

Three epizootics at the same time is unprecedented. “The situation is not reassuring,” says Stéphan Zientara, director of the animal health laboratory of the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES). These diseases come from the same vector: culicoides, small midges originating from warm countries. According to specialists’ hypotheses, everything would start from the Maastricht region, in the Netherlands, a global crossroads for the flower trade. “As these were not disinsected in order to preserve them, the infected midges would have escaped and transmitted the viruses to the continent,” continues Stéphan Zientara.

According to veterinarian Jeanne Brugère-Picoux, these small flies are found in the northern hemisphere due to increasingly favorable climatic conditions. With warming, larvae and adults resist better during the winter. “We suppose that they cross the Mediterranean carried by hot winds from the Maghreb,” she explains. These female insects measuring a few millimeters, capable of digging into the skin of animals, become carriers of the virus by biting an affected animal. Once infected, the midge remains infected for life and, with each meal, it infects a new animal. The situation worries farmers like Nicolas Bosc who, every year, see a new scourge strike their farms. “The FCO destabilizes us and upsets the balance. But it becomes permanent in our profession: one year it’s drought, the other it’s a virus. We are resilient but we have limits,” he asserts.

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