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Bluetongue in Europe: vectors, epidemiology and climate change

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An Erratum to this article was published on 09 January 2009

Abstract

Bluetongue (BT) is an economically important disease of ruminants resulting from infection with bluetongue virus (BTV). Historically, BT outbreaks in Europe were rare and short-lived. However, during the last 10 years, BTV has become firmly established in southern Europe and, since 2006, has begun to occur in northern Europe. There is a substantial body of evidence linking this emergence to climate change. In this paper, we summarise the recent emergence of BTV in Europe, review the known links between climate and BTV transmission, and discuss gaps in our knowledge of the epidemiology of BT and how they might be filled by current and future research.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank John Kennedy at the Met Office Hadley Centre for providing information on seasonal temperature anomalies for the European region from the CRUTEM3 dataset, and Peter Mertens, Simon Gubbins and Karin Darpel at IAH Pirbright for comments on this article. The funding sources of this study are BBSRC (ref: BBS/0/00603) and Defra (ref: SE4104).

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  1. Epidemiology Division, Institute for Animal Health, Ash Road, Pirbright, Surrey, GU24 0NF, UK

    Anthony Wilson & Philip Mellor

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  1. Anthony Wilson
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Correspondence to Anthony Wilson.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00436-008-1314-8.

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00436-008-1314-8.

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Wilson, A., Mellor, P. Bluetongue in Europe: vectors, epidemiology and climate change. Parasitol Res 103 (Suppl 1), 69–77 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-008-1053-x

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