Volume 22 • Issue 05 • 2018
Ruralvet - IN The real world
Enzootic Bovine Leucosis
Compiled by Mark Chimes BVSc
Ruralvet is a closed informal internet discussion forum for ruminant veterinarians in Southern Africa.
Membership is controlled very strictly. No advertising or promotion of products is allowed on the forum.
The purpose of this column is to scour Ruralvets and address a topic of conversation in every issue. There is a
lot of very valuable practical information being posted on Ruralvets but it is not available in a manner that
is easy to access.
The comments are arranged under specific headings so that relevant information is grouped together. I have
also taken the liberty to correct grammatical errors (typos) and translate any Afrikaans comments into
English. Also, certain paragraphs in the comments that are not relevant or superfluous to this subject have
been omitted.
The information is from an informal discussion forum and is not necessarily backed up by research.
Editor
If you are a veterinarian dealing with ruminants and is not a member of Ruralvet, please join the forum by
sending a request to the moderator at [email protected] . Membership is free.
Editor
INTRODUCTION
FM - 4 Dec 2013
As you will see from the disease reporting, EBL is
reported every month.
TC - 29 Jan 2015
EBL (Enzootic Bovine Leukosis)? BLV (Bovine
Leukemia Virus)? Is this another taxonomical
red herring that we old (and quite a few young)
practitioners are becoming mildly confused
about? Whatever its name, we sure as nuts
are never going to eradicate EBL/BLV with
our current dairy industry ‘climate’ with all
its ramifications, the way European countries
with their small herds and huge state subsidies
have been able to. The surest way to curb or
eliminate this disease in our opinion will be the
development of an effective vaccine (that’s a
can of worms) with an intense buy-in by all rôle
players including an über-alles powerful state
arm. However, despite some good publicity of this
disease in the lay press (Jan du Preez gave some
fine articles in Dairy Mail) few dairy farmers pay
it much attention other than saying ”Jislaaik!” at a
post mortem full of leucosis tumours.
DH 29 - Jan 2015
BLV and EBL are like HIV and AIDS, one is the
cause, the other the effect. I agree with your
sentiment about our ability to get rid of it
DEVELOPMENT OF EBL IN SOUTH
AFRICA
TS - 20 Aug 2002
It seems that bovine leucosis is going the same
route as BVD i.e. in the not-too-distant future
there won't be a dairy farm without it. Does
anyone out there think that, given the disease’s
epidemiology, it is worth trying to eliminate the
disease from a farm which is 40% positive on
the screening test? Elisas were only done on a
random selection of 50 animals.
AF - 29 Aug 2002
I found the Leucosis discussion very interesting. I
have seen 2 Friesland herds where cows (3 in one
herd and 2 in the other) died peracutely and in all
cases when we post-mortemed the cows they had
huge spleens (about 3' long) and had probably
banged their side on the way out of the milking
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