Livestock virus hits Europe with a vengeance : Bluetongue spreads rapidly in sheep and cattle in six countries despite the use of three new vaccines

Bluetongue, a viral disease that sickens cattle and kills sheep, is spreading rapidly across northwestern Europe after it resurfaced in the Netherlands last year—and three newly developed vaccines appear unable to stop it. A highly virulent form of the disease, which is transmitted by biting insects, first exploded across Dutch farms and has since caused outbreaks in Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Denmark. “This is going really fast now, despite vaccination,” says Piet van Rijn, a molecular virologist at Wageningen University & Research. Veterinary virologist Martin Beer of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute calls it “a kind of tsunami which is coming.”