Press Release: Commission approved extra funds to combat Bluetongue and Scrapie

On 22 July, 2009, the European Commission decided to provide additional financial support to the Bluetongue vaccination programmes of various Member States and approved a series of special support measures to help Cyprus better deal with the problem of Scrapie in its sheep and goat populations. Vaccination is the main tool to control Bluetongue and, by extension, to reduce farmer losses and trade disturbances that are attributed to the disease. The additional amount to be made available to Member States for vaccination is approximately 59 million Euros. The special support measures to combat Scrapie in Cyprus will be employed to implement a two-year programme that has been submitted by the Cypriot authorities. More than 5 million Euros will become available in 2009 to assist Cyprus' efforts against Scrapie.