Bluetongue is a viral disease caused by Bluetongue virus (BTV) and is spread by biting insects such as Culicoides midges.
Prevention and Eradication of Bluetongue
Since there is no curative treatment for BTV-infected animals, prophylactic immunization of susceptible species remains the most effective and practical control measure against bluetongue in endemic regions.
Bluetongue is a disease affecting all ruminant animals including sheep, cattle, deer, goats and camelids (camels, llamas, alpacas, guanaco and vicuna). It does not affect horses or pigs.
Some animals, particularly sheep, can develop serious disease and may even die. Signs of bluetongue include fever, excessive salivation, depression, and difficulty breathing. Animals may have nasal discharge and reddened and ulcerated muzzle, lips, and ears.
Bluetongue is an insect-borne viral disease to which all species of ruminants are susceptible, although sheep are most severely affected. It does not affect humans.
If you have a blue tongue, you should call your healthcare provider right away. Low levels of oxygen in your blood is a serious condition and requires prompt medical attention.
Fungal infections and inflammatory disease can cause a horse's eye to take on a hazy, bluish appearance. If one eye looks less clear than the other, or if both look more clouded than you recall, it's cause for investigation.
Excessive hydration of the cornea—due to any process that causes corneal edema—results in an opaque, cloudy cornea. A bluish color to the eye almost always means corneal edema, accordingly. Corneal edema can occur subsequent to conditions such as uveitis, glaucoma or endothelial dystrophy, to name a few.
Keratitis is inflammation of the cornea (this part of the eye is largely made up of keratin cell types). The cause of keratitis is often infectious, viral, bacterial or fungal, but in some cases the cause is unknown. All types of keratitis are associated with a blue discoloration of the cornea.
Bluetongue is one of the major infectious diseases of ruminants and is caused by bluetongue virus (BTV), a virus transmitted from infected to uninfected hosts by Culicoides biting midges (1).
In traditional medicine, purple/blue-ish tongue color indicates blood stasis [30] which is usually associated with stress and is consistent with our findings.
Indirect control
There are two types of BTV vaccines, the live attenuated and the inactivated. The live attenuated vaccine are made, since 1947, by using viruses that are still alive and able to replicate in the host but with significantly reduced virulence.
Bluetongue is a viral disease caused by Bluetongue virus (BTV) and is spread by biting insects such as Culicoides midges. Nine of the twenty-four known strains (serotypes) of BTV have been identified in Australia. Many of the strains of BTV that can cause severe disease are exotic to Australia.
You may also notice that your horse's eyes look a little blue. Fungal eye infections may be treated with topical pain medication, anti-fungal and antibiotic ointments, or oral anti-inflammatory medication. Surgery may be needed to treat severe ulcers that don't respond to other treatments.
Horses are particularly vulnerable to ocular trauma because their eyes are large and positioned on the sides of the head. Corneal ulcers are one of the most common eye conditions caused by trauma. The cornea is a transparent membrane in the front of the eye.
Scanning Eyes. A horse that trusts their owner will look them in the eye while standing calmly. The horse's relaxed facial expression tells you the horse is ready to turn to you as a good leader.
Green eyes are the rarest eye color in horses. They are most commonly found in pearl or cream and pearl horses but even then are uncommon.
A very typical sign of this condition that the veterinarian will be looking for is the darkening of your horse's iris. Horses with moon blindness tend to have a very dark iris, but without any damage or scarring within it. The area around the iris may look very rough and irregular.
blue·tongue ˈblü-ˌtəŋ : a virus disease chiefly of sheep that is marked by hyperemia, cyanosis, and by swelling and sloughing of the mucous membranes especially about the mouth and tongue and is caused by a reovirus (species Bluetongue virus of the genus Orbivirus)
It is in a class of drugs called benzodiazepines – which are sedatives used to treat anxiety, insomnia and sleep disorders, seizure ailments or used as skeletal-muscle relaxants.
Differential diagnosis include foot and mouth disease. Orf may cause ulcertaions on the mucous membranes but is not usually a cause of high fever or mortality. Clostridial disease may cause sudden death and fever/oedema but this is usually sporadic and in unvaccinated sheep.
The course of bluetongue in sheep can vary from peracute to chronic, with a mortality rate of 2%–90%. Peracute cases die within 7–9 days of infection, mostly as a result of severe pulmonary edema leading to dyspnea, frothing from the nostrils, and death by asphyxiation.