Defra Order 13 Million More Bluetongue Doses
UK - 13 Million doses of the Bluetongue vaccine were ordered by the Departmnent of Environmental Food and Rural Affairs, eight million for use in England and five million for use in Wales.
8 May 2008
1 minute read
Under EU law, vaccination is only allowed in a Protection Zone. The Bluetongue vaccination plan sets out how vaccination will be rolled out and the Protection Zone expanded county by county across England, taking into account the availability of vaccine and the level of disease risk.
To that end, last year we ordered 22.5m doses of vaccine from Intervet. The first three million doses of that order were released into the Protection Zones last week, well ahead of schedule. Initial indications would suggest a high response to the early availability of vaccine and that take-up of vaccine is high.
Further batches of vaccine are being delivered by Intervet, and we will expand the Protection Zones accordingly as soon as that vaccine is available. However, in order to ensure that sufficient doses are available for vaccination to be fully rolled out across the whole country, an order for additional vaccine is required.
