Please note that the 10- 20 mio doses to be tendered for supplying relate  to England only; the devolved administrations are free to do as they see  fit.

Also - when the tenders are returned it is possible that 2 firms may be asked to supply 10 - 20 mio doses - this is not determined, a lot of work still has to be done, this is only the first hurdle, indeed no vaccine has yet been
ordered, but the tender documents will hopefully lead to sensible orders being placed.

I was at the Stakeholder conference yesterday and many points of view were  expressed, but, crucially, the Chair stated that DEFRA's aim was to facilitate the process whereby the industry sorted out it's response to Bluetongue, NOT, DEFRA telling us from above what we are going to do.

To underline the point, the announcement of the vaccination tendering process came from a 'core Stakeholder,' supported by another, NOT from DEFRA personnel. Also, core Stakeholders were as involved in attempting to find  solutions to other Stakeholders problems as DEFRA were, ie movement  restrictions, chaos being caused for some specific sectors, difficulty planning  for next year etc.DEFRA welcomed stakeholder input and seem (in my experience) to be responding to it).

We are not there yet, but some encouraging developments should be celebrated as such. The debates about how the vaccine will be deployed (assuming vaccine is ordered and that we get as much as we can - which cannot possibly be enough to compulsarily vaccinate every animal, the  manufacturers cannot produce
that much that quickly)  and the debate about  who pays what (and gets what in return) are still to be had; hopefully they will  be conducted in a productive and cooperative spirit to derive the optimal  outcomes for livestock in England (and UK hopefully); that is why I attend these meetings, so far I do not feel that any time there is wasted, indeed far from  it, if I felt that I would soon say so (here and elsewhere).

Chris. - 2nd November 2007