As the summer heats up and insect disease vectors multiply, the USDA has begun issuing its weekly reports on cases of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) in livestock.
For most of us, July 4th means cookouts, parades and fireworks. But for livestock, it’s the unofficial entry to the “dog days of summer,” with the associated threat of damaging heat stress.
While rabies remains one of the most threatening zoonotic diseases worldwide, vaccination has greatly reduced the incidence of infection among pets, livestock and even wildlife.
The USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, has confirmed the first 2019 cases of vesicular stomatitis on three premises in Texas and New Mexico.
When the rinderpest virus broke out in Africa in the 1890s, death loss in cattle herds across eastern and southern Africa reached 80 to 90%, triggering a massive famine, with millions of people dying across the region.
Veterinarians and producers in western states should be on the lookout for signs of vesicular stomatitis (VS), which in recent years has been reported in states across the western United States.
