The Impact of Bluetongue on Rumminants Mortality. (Bovine and Ovine)

Abstract

Bluetongue is a disease of sheep, but cattle are the principal vertebrate reservoirs of the virus. Once established, "it is impossible to actively eradicate bluetongue virus". The virus will circulate, generally subclinically, in cattle and other ruminants, and in midges. The objective of this study was to examine the correlation between the bluetongue incidence data(2006) and the mortality data(2006). To achieve the main objective of this report, the difference in the 2006 mortality and mean mortality of previous year's (2002 to 2005) was obtained. This difference was used to examine the correlation of the Bluetongue incidence and the mortality in 2006. The generalized linear mixed model with negative binomial as distribution and the log link as the link function were used in analyzing the data. The result of the analysis revealed that there was a weak correlation between the mortality and incidence in 2006. Thus the result of the study seem to show that Bluetongue had no influence on ruminant mortality during the year 2006. There was a difference in mortality and incidence in the various provinces. There is no difference of incidence between species, as well as mortality.