Bovine viral diarrhoea: (nearly) 15 years of work

Like many, if not all, farm animal vets, my first professional work with bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) was blood sampling herds for one of the CHeCS schemes. In a cold Scottish winter, visiting farms as part of tuberculosis and brucellosis testing, I would collect these blood samples to ensure the farmers retained the status needed to trade as BVD-accredited free. I knew it was important; however, as a relatively new graduate, I didn't apply my thinking to the wider industry, despite seeing that the accredited farms tended to have better health than the general farm.

My first hint that there might be a wider issue that extended the work I was doing beyond the individual farmgate was in the audience at a farming meeting at Thainstone mart in 2010. The audience was addressed by Moredun staff and officials from the Scottish Government, and I left convinced that something good was happening.

Career planning has never been my forte, I tend to seize opportunities as they arise. That is how I found myself in Wales, working as a University academic for the Royal Veterinary College, where BVD once again came to the forefront. The Welsh Government and stakeholder groups were beginning to tackle this disease, working to develop a suitable approach for Wales. I was fortunate enough to be involved in estimating the scale of BVD in Wales and contributing to the design of the Welsh system.