Crovect® now provides ten weeks cover against ticks
A product used to treat sheep infested with ticks has had its status upgraded, meaning one treatment will now treat ticks for up to 10 weeks.
Crovect®, which is produced by Novartis Animal Health, also works in the treatment and control of headflies, the treatment of biting lice, and the prevention and treatment of blowfly strike in sheep.
With the extended claim, Crovect® is now a good choice for long lasting tick treatment with the shortest meat withhold period available; this will prove useful for farmers taking lambs to market at this time of year.
Thomas Tiley, a vet with Novartis Animal Health, said: “Previously Crovect was available as an immediate treatment only. Anecdotally we have had reports of it working for longer, but there was no specified length of cover. This announcement confirms Crovect’s status as a ten week lasting treatment. It is also the only long lasting tick control product on the market with such a short meat withhold period of just eight days.”
“There is evidence that ticks are spreading in the UK, both in terms of numbers and geographical areas; this has been demonstrated in recent studies*. The perceived distribution of ticks in Great Britain has expanded in recent years and abundances of ticks have increased at about three-quarters of locations surveyed*. In the most recent study done on dogs**, tick distribution was also shown to not just be present on moorland areas, but throughout the UK. Ticks are more prevalent than people think,” he said.
“It’s important to control ticks as they do transmit some very damaging diseases in the same way mosquitoes do for humans. The worst of these diseases are louping ill, tick-borne fever and tick pyaemia, and symptoms vary from mild depression even through to death in severe cases. Further to this, the ticks themselves can be damaging to sheep, particularly if a severe infestation is present” he said.
Most farmers are aware of whether they are living in a high risk tick area or have pasture where ticks are a problem. The insects prefer certain habitats such as rough grazing; also other species of mammals and birds are involved in their lifecycle so can act as a natural reserve.
“As ticks can be very difficult to see in sheep, treating with a long lasting product is a good idea if you think there is a likelihood of infestation. If one or two animals in a flock have them it is likely to be the tip of an iceberg, so you would be advised to treat the flock as a whole. It can be something you should also look at field by field – one area of land might be high risk while another is not,” said Mr Tiley.
Helen Langham, Brand Manager at Novartis Animal Health said “the licence claim extension for Crovect® is very good news for the industry. At Novartis Animal Health, we consistently aim to provide innovative and complete solutions for our customers, and the ten week tick claim is a great example of this support. We are pleased to be able to bring this revised claim to the product to provide control of these troublesome parasites, both for health and welfare reasons and to assist in the protection of profitability for our farmer customers. Ticks can create a real problem for livestock, so it is important for farmers to use a suitable product to provide control. Crovect® also has the advantage of a short meat withhold period, so farmers can be confident of bringing their animals to market tick and disease free,” she said.
References:
*Kirby et al., 2004; Scharlemann et al., 2008
**Ref: Prevalence, distribution and risk associated with tick infestation of dogs in Great Britain F. D. SMITH, R. BALLANTYNE, E. R. MORGAN and R. WALL,
Medical and Veterinary Entomology (2011), doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2915.2011.00954.x
About Crovect®
Crovect® Pour on contains 1.25% (w/v) cypermethrin. Crovect® is a registered trademark of Novartis AG, Basle, Switzerland. Advice on the use of this or alternative medicines must be sought from the medicine prescriber. Use medicines responsibly. www.noah.co.uk/responsible. Legal Category: POM-VPS in UK
ENDS
About Novartis Animal Health
Novartis Animal Health is a leader in developing new and better ways to prevent and treat diseases in pets, farm animals and cultivated fish. We focus our energy on developing new medicines that improve the quality of life for companion animals, as well as those that improve the health of livestock and farmed fish as we strive to support high-quality production and welfare.
For further information, please contact:
Novartis UK Press Office +44 (0) 1276 698691
Helen Langham, Novartis Animal Health, 01276 694402, helen.langham@novartis.com
Henry Creagh, Kendalls Communications, 01394 610022, henry.creagh@kendallscom.co.uk
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