Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment he has made of whether calves born in 2014 to cows which have Schmallenberg disease in 2013 will be given immunity to that disease; and if he will make a statement.
[149176]
Answer
As with many viral infections, we would expect that unaffected offspring born to Schmallenberg infected animals will have a certain level of protective immunity lasting a few months as a result of maternal antibodies. These antibodies are received in the first milk from the mother when the newborns' gut is, for a few hours following birth, able to absorb them into the body. These antibody levels will drop over the following weeks and months and the offspring will then be unprotected until they themselves are either infected or vaccinated. This is the situation with related viruses, such as Akabane virus in Australia, where each year the offspring are at risk of infection.