Officials from the Department of Agriculture are meeting today to discuss the country’s first outbreak of bluetongue.
The virus was confirmed in a cattle herd in County Wexford at the weekend.
The Department of Agriculture says it increased its testing and surveillance for Bluetongue since the virus was detected in Northern Ireland last month.
Kilkenny man Denis Drennan, President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, says “This is a huge concern for farmers but I suppose the main thing we’d like to get out this morning is that there is absolutely no risk to food safety or human health, it won’t have any effect on our meat and dairy exports, it’s an animal disease that doesn’t transmit to humans so that’s, I suppose, the main thing, that we don’t have hysteria about it being of any threat to humans”.
