Sheep huddle together, nosebleed, abort lambs or suffocate with saliva as they succumb to bluetongue, a virus sweeping through flocks on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Around 20,000 sheep have died so far this year on the island, which is home to almost half of Italy’s flock and plays an important role in the production of famous Italian cheeses such as Pecorino.
It’s another blow to farmers in a region already hit by a drought exacerbated by human-induced climate change — which experts say is also fueling the spread of bluetongue and larger outbreaks.
“The virus hit about two and a half months earlier than usual,” farmer Michela Dessi, 39, told AFP as she scanned her flock for panting or limping sheep in her fields in Arbus in western Sardinia.
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Blue fever poses no danger to humans, but in animals it causes swollen heads, high fever, mouth ulcers, difficulty swallowing and breathing, and can turn an infected animal’s tongue blue.
It is transmitted between animals by the bite of mosquitoes.
While cattle, goats and deer can also get it, sheep are most affected, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).
Infected and pregnant ewes miscarry or their lambs are born deformed, and survivors may lose their wool.
Sunken flanks are a sign that ewes are carrying dead fetuses. Sick animals struggle to chase them away.
The virus is peaking
The infection rate this year on Dessi’s farm is about 60 percent and about 30 percent of her sheep have aborted.
About 50 of her 650 sheep have died — and in some ways she said it was “horrible to see.”
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With a high fever, “they are denied food and water and some suffocate or choke on their own saliva,” he said, adding that it is illegal to euthanize them.
Nearly 3,000 cases have been recorded so far this year in Sardinia, compared with 371 last year — and the end is still in sight.
Blue fever used to peak in Sardinia in August, but has been doing so until November in recent years, according to the region’s veterinary research institute (IZS).
“Climatic conditions greatly affect the populations of scorpions,” the animal health department at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome told AFP.
They affect their “biting behavior and the speed of virus growth, with climate change likely driving the spread of the virus … and contributing to larger outbreaks.”
Attacks have been reported in other European countries this year, from neighboring France to Portugal, Spain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Blue fever has been present in Sardinia since 2000, but Italian farming lobby Coldiretti says the authorities are too slow each year to vaccinate the island’s herds.
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The cost of failing to rein it in is high.
A University of Bologna study last year found that the 2017 outbreak, which killed 34,500 sheep, cost about 30 million euros ($33 million).
This included damage suffered by farms — deaths, reduced milk yields, sterility, abortions — costs to animal health authorities and subsidies paid by the region to affected farms.
Mass graves
“The first cases appear in the same risk areas every year,” meaning highly targeted measures could theoretically prevent outbreaks, said Stefano Cappai from the IZS research institute.
There are three variants on the island this year, two of which can be vaccinated, with twice the mortality rate among unvaccinated sheep.
The flocks should be vaccinated in March or April, Cappai said, but vaccines were only issued by the district in mid-June this year.
By that point, the virus had started to spread out of control.
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Even if the vaccines were made available earlier, some farmers are afraid to use them.
Others vaccinate only part of their herd, meaning they fail to reach herd immunity, Cappai said.
And some farmers — like Desi — vaccinated her flock, only to have the sheep catch the variant for which there is no vaccine yet.
Battista Qualbu, head of Coldiretti in Sardinia, who also has an outbreak on his farm, said vaccines are not enough and authorities need to disinfect areas and provide fungicides.
“It would certainly save public money because the region has to pay compensation for the dead animals (and) lost income,” he said, including less milk sold and fewer lambs for slaughter.
The compensation is set at 150 euros per sheep killed by blue fever — a figure Coldiretti is fighting to increase, although the region has not paid out in the past three years, Desi said.
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As temperatures drop, the number of cases is expected to drop, but Deci said the end was weeks away.
“I have already dug three mass graves and I fear the worst is yet to come,” he said.
Source: AFP