Current knowledge of the BVD syndrome of cattle

agent, immune response, course and spread, control

Abstract

The following presentation attempts to give a summary overview of the wealth of facts and assumptions which are available in the literature on the BVD syndrome. Some of the author’s own opinions will be added. The first of these concerns itself with the often heard opinion that the nature of bovine virus diarrhea has changed completely in recent years. In light of the biological laws which viruses and the diseases they cause “obey”, such a “fundamental change” hardly seems conceivable. The author is convinced that we are more often deceived by the rapidly accumulating knowledge of the life cycle and pathogenicity of the BVD virus as well as the response of cattle to this agent, and by the diagnosis of BVD-virus-caused disease or injury being made far more frequently than before because of the improved, more routinely applied methods of investigation. We see a situation, which was always present, as “new” or “changed”, because before it was not “apparent” to the degree it is now. Additionally, changes in cattle management and in the movement of animals may likewise have played a certain role.