The number of herds positive for Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) has dropped by 17% in the first 35 weeks of the year when compared to the same period in 2023, according to Animal Health Ireland (AHI).
The latest data from the national BVD eradication programme shows that 172 herds or 0.28% of all herds were classified as positive for the disease so far this year.
This is down by 36 herds on the same period in 2023 when 208 (0.33%) herds were found to be positive.
BVD
The AHI data shows that 2,093,518 calves have been tested for BVD under the eradication programme up to week 35 this year, which is down from 2,140,940 in the corresponding period last year.
There were 383 calves which tested positive for the disease (0.02%), which is down significantly (-185) on a year previously when that figure stood at 568 (0.03%).
The number of inconclusive test results also decreased notably, down from 9 by week 35 of 2023 to 1 this year.
The data shows that 335 calves which were BVD-positive were recorded dead over the 35-week period, compared to 494 12 months previously.
One herd retained one or more BVD positive calves for more than 3 weeks after the date of the first test.
The number of empty tags was recorded at 17,659 (0.84%), compared to 21,084 (0.98%) for the same period last year.
AHI has previously outlined the progress made under the BVD eradication programme.
By the end of 2023, 96.1% of breeding herds and 97.4% of all herds had negative herd status (NHS) and 0.39% of breeding herds and 0.23% of all herds had positive results in 2023.
99.6% of bovine animals had a negative BVD status, with remainder mostly untested.
0.026% of calves tested during 2023 returned BVD virus positive results, which when put in the
context of all the cattle in Ireland, is an animal-level prevalence of 0.01%.
The number of BVD suspect animals alive at the end of 2023 was historically low, with those
having been found in only 7 out of 83,000 breeding herds.