Evaluation of Bluetongue surveillance in Germany.

In August 2006, Bluetongue disease (BT) occurred for the first time in Western and Central Europe. To comply with regulation (EC) No 1266/2007, Germany established a sentinel program in cattle and carried out a cross-sectional study in winter 2007. We analyzed the suitability of both the sentinel program and the cross-sectional study and its benefit for BT control, taking the officially reported BT outbreaks into consideration. The evaluation shows that particularly the sentinel program was time-consuming and expensive.