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Vet survey reveals truth behind BVD vaccination uptake

A recent investigation amongst cattle vets revealed they thought that around three quarters of herds in their care – dairy and beef – would benefit from employing a BVD vaccination programme. The Intervet-sponsored survey also showed that vets placed significant importance on the condition as a way of improving client relationships.

Vets were asked to rank BVD according to three criteria: how well discussions can assist in developing vet:client relationships how the potential impact of utilising vet advice can improve the profitability of the farm business how integral to herd health planning it can be Overall, BVD scored 4.3 in a system with 5 being the highest, and 1 the lowest possible score. In contrast to the condition’s high score as a way of building client relationships, BVD vaccine sales were much lower placed – at 3.5 – as a source of revenue. “These two questions reinforced what we see in practice; namely vets have to invest time and money to secure vaccine sales and they are keen to address BVD from a whole herd and total health perspective,” says Dr Nils Henke, Product Manager at Intervet which manufactures Bovilis BVD. “What can be easy to overlook in some cases is the potential sales value to the practice. Whilst vaccine sales may be less significant short-term, farmers tend to stay with vaccination once they start, so the long-term financial value to the practice is very important. At current usage levels, BVD vaccination contributes more than £2 million to practice incomes, and this should increase of the coming years as usage continues to grow.” Additional questions explored the issues surrounding lack of vaccine uptake on farms where BVD was likely to be having a negative affect. “Without exception, the vets said that the lack of clear clinical signs is the main barrier to being able to convince a farmer to start vaccinating,” adds Dr Henke. “Being unable to specify that problems a, b or c, which have a cost £x, attached to them and will be resolved by investing in vaccine makes any discussion more challenging.” Given that commonly-published work estimates that 95% of all herds have had some level of exposure to the disease, an obvious question is despite this, why hasn’t uptake been higher? In 2002, approximately 1.1 million doses of BVD vaccine were sold, although the potential market is estimated to be around 3.5 - 4 million doses. That said, BVD vaccine use did increase by over 42% last year, after falling off during the FMD outbreak. The survey went on to examine the differences in behaviour between beef and dairy farmers in order that vets could be advised how to alter their consultations accordingly. “The information on the dairy farmer showed that, as they are in daily contact with the herd, run on-going health plans and are able to pick up any ill effects of disease easily as it is shown in milk yields, they can be an easier person to ‘sell’ to,” Dr Henke says. “In comparison, the beef farmer often has a more reactive relationship with their vet and there are fewer performance benchmarks. Frustratingly, these producers also view a failed conception (which could be due to BVD or other factors) as a delay in production, rather than lost profit.” One of the key summary findings of the work, and something vets should find encouraging, is the fact that the work showed once a farmer has started with vaccination, they tend to stick with it. “The investment in time and effort to convert someone normally pays off as it seems to be a case of ‘once a user, always a user’,” Dr Henke concludes.