Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) virus vaccines in cattle

Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) virus is one of the most important viral infections of cattle. The virus infects cattle of all age groups, including the unborn calf. 

BVD can cause devastating losses in individual herds.

The cost: £40–60m to the national herd in health and productivity loss (Bennett R. 2005).

Three vaccines for BVD virus (BVDV) were marketed in the UK:

• Bovilis BVD contains inactivated BVDV
• Bovidec contains inactivated BVDV
• Bovela contains modified live BVDV

Inactivated BVDV is also a component of three vaccines that target pneumonia: Bovalto Respi 4, Rispoval 3 and Rispoval 4. These are targeted mainly at stock under one year of age. These combination vaccines have not been included in the estimated uptake of BVD vaccines but are instead included in the estimated uptake of vaccines targeted at calf pneumonia.

Assumptions

Numerator: The number of doses of vaccine administered has been calculated by multiplying the number of packs sold by the number of doses per pack.

Denominator: Common industry practice is to give breeding heifers a primary course of vaccination before first service (between one and two years) and all breeding females over two years of age an annual booster. It was assumed that only female breeding animals should be vaccinated and that the at-risk population was all female cattle over one year of age.

The primary vaccination course for vaccines containing inactivated BVDV is two doses of vaccine separated by a three- or four-week interval. To take this into account, when calculating the denominator for these products, the number of cattle between one and two years of ages was multiplied by two, then added to the number of female cattle over two years of age. The primary vaccination course for the vaccine containing modified live BVDV is one dose of vaccine, so the denominator was all female cattle over one year of age.

Vaccination uptake

Since 2011, BVD vaccine uptake has been steady, fluctuating within a small range (39–45%), with the exception of 2014 where a small increase was observed at 48%. In 2023 it was estimated as 39%. This is a conservative estimate as it is likely that a proportion of female cattle aged between one and two years of age are destined for slaughter rather than breeding and are unlikely to be vaccinated for BVD.