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France appears to have got on top of its bluetongue outbreak which has been ongoing for two years. The French agriculture ministry reported no new cases to the OIE, the world organisation for animal health.
It said that while the serotype 8 outbreak could not be considered resolved, the situation was now sufficiently stable. This indicates confidence there will be no further new cases in the affected area.
France is now likely to seek a lifting of restrictions on exports of live cattle which followed the outbreak.
It used a number of measures to gain control of the outbreak, including movement control inside the country, vaccination, screening of animals within affected regions, herd surveillance and zoning and control of the insect vectors. There was no treatment of infected animals.
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