This week, the Second Nature events series brings a topical special event on Bluetongue disease.

Hot on the heels of another Foot-and-Mouth disease outbreak, a Bluetongue Disease outbreak was declared in the UK last week. This summer, there have been 3,000 reported cases of Bluetongue in Northern Europe alone. What is Bluetongue? How does it spread, why is it here now and where will it go next? And is it all because of climate change?

Picture from IAH fact sheet, showing the Bluetongue virus

Join us for a special session with Professor Philip Mellor from the Institute of Animal Health at Pirbright for a discussion of all the details of Bluetongue, what we can expect from the outbreak and whether global warming is going to result in Bluetongue and other animal diseases becoming the norm.

Title: Bluetongue Disease special

Speaker: Professor Philip Mellor

Location: Second Nature Island

Date: Thursday 4th October

Time: 7am SLT, 10am EST, 2pm GMT, 3pm BST

Contact: Joanna Wombat

Note – this session will be using voice only. For help on how to set up voice, IM me (Joanna Wombat), or visit the Second Nature cafe ahead of time to read the insturctions.

More info:

Bluetongue disease
Professor Mellor’s research group