Global warming could hit livestock exports

By Martin Hellicar

GLOBAL warming and the effect it is having on a member of the mosquito family could prove to be very bad news indeed for local shepherds.

The problem is blue tongue disease, a potentially fatal viral infection which affects sheep and goats and is transmitted from animal to animal by the mosquito species.

As Veterinary service director Pavlos Economides explained to the Cyprus Mailyesterday, rising global temperatures mean the mosquito has now spread its range northwards as far as Bulgaria from its strongholds Syria and Turkey.

Cyprus sheep and goats have long developed immunity to the Blue Tongue virus (there hasn’t been a local Blue Tongue fatality since 1970), but the same is not true of their European cousins.

“The virus is considered exotic and highly contagious and pathogenic for other areas,” Economides said.

This means that, with the mosquito in situ and likely to spread as temperatures rise further, European countries are now vulnerable to Blue Tongue and do not want to import carrier animals.

The net result is that Europe now does not want live sheep and goats from Blue Tongue effected areas, like Cyprus.

Local producers wishing to sell animals abroad can do nothing but decry the polluting practices that fuel the greenhouse effect.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.