Liver fluke in sheep is at a dangerous level, an authority on the disease has said.
Dr Edward Goodall, who researches for Ciba Geigy, told a meeting in Dublin yesterday that infestation in the 1995-96 season was 35 per cent in cattle and 18 per cent in sheep, a threefold increase since the mid 1980s.
Weather conditions in 1996 have favoured the spread of the liver fluke parasite. Dr Goodall said the computerised fluke forecasting model has quantified the substantial carry over effect of the disease from year to year and he predicted that the very high levels of liver fluke would have serious implications for 1996-97.
Fluke infection could be fatal for sheep, cause a loss of 5 per cent to 15 per cent of milk yield in dairy cows, a lack of growth in animals and costs the agricultural industry millions of pounds annually.