Antibodies to bovine viral diarrhoea virus in beef cattle

Abstract

Infection of cattle with bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVD virus) is common throughout the world(1) and the prevalence of neutralising antibodies to the virus reported from surveys ranges from about 40% to 90%(2)(3)(4). The first isolation of BVD virus in New Zealand was reported in 1967(5) and, since that time, evidence of widespread infection in dairy cattle has been presented(6). Whilst the diseases associated with BVD viral infection have been well recognised in dairy herds, there has been a belief that infection of beef herds is less common. Based on this belief has been the fear that the growth of the dairy beef industry could lead to the introduction of BVD virus into an essentially naive beef population with disastrous results such as those reported by MacNeil and van der Oord⁽⁷⁾. We decided therefore to sample beef cattle submitted to abattoirs throughout New Zealand for serological evidence of prior exposure to BVD virus.