10/27/2020: 

A collaboration between scientists in Scotland and Royal GD has found that a lack of ‘social distancing’ between sheep is almost exclusively responsible for the spread of the virus that causes the chronic viral disease maedi-visna. The study provides an important step towards devising prevention, control and elimination strategies.

Maedi-visna (MV) is an insidious, incurable and eventually fatal viral disease in sheep. The most common symptoms are chronic respiratory disease and hardening of the udder, which only become evident some years after infection. It occurs in most sheep-keeping areas worldwide and causes loss of production and poor animal welfare. The disease is mostly transmitted via exhaled droplets and aerosols from infected sheep, suggesting the danger of prolonged close contact, such as during housing. However, there has been no previous quantitative analysis of virus transmission under farm conditions.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh, the Moredun Research Institute and Royal GD found much higher rates of spread of the virus during periods of winter housing than between sheep kept at grass.

Read the whole press release by The Moredun Group