(Adapted from foreign sources)

Vladislav Hanyeyev, Candidate of Veterinary Science

History and distribution

Schmallenberg disease, which is still not fully understood, and causes a lot of controversy, was first described in Northern Europe in the summer of 2011. Then there were reports that the German dairy cows have signs of fever, anorexia, decreased their milk yield (50%), the animals lost weight. Incidence rate of herds was high (20-70%) within 2-3 weeks,and sick animals recovered in a few days.In November, 2011 the farmers began reporting on abortion and stillbirth, accompanied by defects in the fetus, mainly among sheep, as well as among the goats, and cattle.

Since then European veterinarians have described many cases of cattle, sheep, goats and bison diseases. The disease was found in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Estonia, Sweden and of Denmark, Finland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland. Geographically Schmallenberg disease encompasses more than 6,500 farms (www.farmersguardian.com). In September, 2012 722 head of cattle were brought from Austria to Kazakhstan, during the quarantine viral diarrhea and Schmallenberg disease were detected. In this regard, Kazakhstan decided to destroy all the cattle with offspring.

More information read in the magazine «Milk and Farm» # 2 (15), April 2013