Letters

Letters
CATTLE HEALTH external bleeding. If you have a case that
you think might meet our criteria, please
Case-control study contact your local veterinary investigation
laboratory to discuss it.
on bleeding calf We will select our control farms
syndrome at random and will inform the farm’s
veterinary surgeon before we invite the
farmer to participate.
WE write to request the continued support We are grateful for the support we have
of cattle practitioners in our effort to identify received from private veterinary surgeons in
the causes of the emerging condition of the past year and hope that we can continue
bleeding calf syndrome, now renamed to count on that support as we carry out the
bovine neonatal pancytopenia. second phase of our study.
Cases of an unexplained haemorrhagic
diathesis in young calves have been reported Andrew Holliman, Veterinary Investigation
from several European countries in the Officer, VLA – Penrith, Merrythought,
past two years. In April 2009, we began Calthwaite, Penrith, Cumbria CA11 9RR
investigating the syndrome in a Defra-funded e-mail: a.holliman@vla.defra.gsi.gov.uk
project that has involved the Veterinary George Caldow, Senior Veterinary
Laboratories Agency (VLA), Scottish Investigation Officer, SAC Consulting:
Agricultural College (SAC) and Moredun Veterinary Services, Disease Surveillance
Research Institute (MRI) with helpful input Centre, Greycrook, St Boswells,
from private practitioners and in particular Roxburghshire TD6 0EU
the clinicians of the large animal practice
teaching unit of Edinburgh university. doi: 10.1136/vr.c1664
Over 100 cases have now been
confirmed in Great Britain on the basis of
characteristic histopathological changes in
the bone marrow of affected calves.
A case series study was carried out from
July to September 2009. The condition was
found to affect calves younger than one
month of age and the pathology centred on
damage to the bone marrow, manifesting
as pancytopenia, with a high mortality rate
in clinical cases. The condition has been
observed in calves from both dairy and beef
herds. We have found no evidence that this
condition is infectious, and our studies have
to date failed to demonstrate conclusive
evidence that a single factor is involved in
the aetiology.
We are continuing to investigate the
condition and the next phase of the project
is a case-control study to begin in April
2010. This will involve the investigation
of 56 further cases and a similar number of
controls. Postmortem examinations will
continue to be carried out, free of charge,
as part of this Defra-funded project. The
study will include the completion of a
questionnaire on both case and control
farms. We will recruit cases from those that
are brought to our attention and would
be grateful if private veterinary surgeons
would continue to refer suspect cases to their
local veterinary investigation laboratory at
either the VLA or SAC. We emphasise that
although the case definition is unexplained
haemorrhage in calves less than one month
of age, a minority of confirmed cases, in
the target age range, have shown minimal

406 | Veterinary Record | March 27, 2010