The disease of the blue tongue persists in Estremadurathe vaccine does not stop the appearance of new outbreaks, more than 250 according to the latest epidemiological update from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA), and some farmers assure that sheep already vaccinated “they are relapsing again”.
This is the case of Lourdes Bas Rodríguez, a 31-year-old rancher in Villanueva del Fresno (Badajoz), ground zero of serotype 3, the most harmful and where the start of mobilizations has been announced by a sector that describes the situation as “a disaster.” Only in this town on the border with Portugal, in the area of the Communal property shared by about 15 shepherds, all affected by the disease, there are seven mass graves with about 600 sheep and more than a thousand dead sheep.
Lourdes calculates 50% loss of income for the death of about 30 sheep and 28 lambs, from a herd of 300 heads, due to blue tongue that appeared in mid-September with the first symptoms: “snot, blood, they became lame and lost a lot of weight.” Last October 5 his entire farm was vaccinatedbut although “at first they recovered a little, they are relapsing again and I have again sheep that no longer get up, have no appetite, are depressed and suffering abortions.”
Among his animals There are people affected by serotype 3 but also 1for which there are still no vaccines, to which is added the fear over the new outbreaks of serotype 8 that have recently been detected in two farms in the province, in the towns of Fuente del Maestre and Hinojosa del Valle.
“It is not only the ones who die but the consequences and the consequences they leavebecause almost 100% of my sheep have been sick and that leads to abortions and problems in lambing next year,” explains Lourdes, so “looking to the future” ask the administrations for help. In this sense, Eduardo Lavado López, also from Villalobos, who has a farm of approximately 850 sheep and speaks of losses of “between 10,000 and 14,000 euros”, points out that he believes that the vaccine “has had an effect”, but that it is true that there have been consequences.
Most of the sheep that were going to give birth in November are not going to do so and going into spring they do not know what will happen, “because if 500 sheep are being covered now, maybe only 200 will be pregnant,” he says. This 41-year-old rancher emphasizes that there are fewer and fewer young people working in the fields because although “this is something that cannot end, it ends,” he said.
Eduardo Lavado mainly denounces the bureaucratic “obstacles”: “I I don’t want help, I want you to leave us alonebecause the amount of papers is unbearable.” “We don’t want subsidies, we want solutions,” says Lourdes, because “if they want, they can, and an example is that it took a few days for the vaccine to be delivered.” That’s why this young woman The livestock company also asks “farmers, those in the small store and those in the office” to join the demonstration called on November 15 to “support this cause, because everything comes from the fields.”
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