Welcome to BITE Bluetongue Information, Typing and Epidemiology Due to an extremely large number of bogus and suspicious site registrations on the website, self registration has been suspended. If you would like to register on the website please contact the site administrator using the link in the problems? section on the lefthand side of this page. bt_sml.jpg The Bluetongue Virus (BTV) is a double stranded RNA virus of the Orbivirus genus in the Reoviridae family. The BTV RNA is packaged inside two protein layers (pictured on the left). A third layer is lost when the virus enters the host cell. There are at least 24 different serotypes of the bluetongue virus. sheep-excess-saliva_sml.jpg The Bluetongue virus causes disease in sheep, cattle, and other ruminants. It does not affect humans. The clinical signs of the disease are usually restricted to domesticated breeds of sheep, other animals such as goats and cattle rarely show any symptoms. two-midges-sml.jpg BTV relies on a vector or carrier to spread from host to host. The vector of bluetongue is a small biting midge called of the genus Culicoides. Seasonal variations in temperature and weather affect the spread of Culicoides and therefore also affect the spread of Bluetongue Virus.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:57:38 +0000
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