Certification could tackle OPA

A certification scheme backed by the use of ultrasound scanning technology could help stamp out one of the sheep industry’s most insidious diseases.

A workshop held at Moredun investigated the industry’s attitude to recent research at the institute which had shown that ultrasound scanning could be used to identify the early onset of ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma (OPA), a contagious lung and wasting disease caused by the virus known as jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus.

In the absence of any vaccine, treatment or blood test, ultrasound scanning was recently identified as a diagnostic tool which would allow early identification of sheep with preclinical OPA – offering an opportunity to introduce measures at an earlier stage which would help control the spread of the disease both within and between flocks.

And although the meeting concluded that a fullon national eradication scheme was currently a step too far, the initiation of a scheme which would allow individual flocks to achieve monitored OPA status in order to sell sheep certified as low risk for OPA transmission was favoured.