(Radio Iowa) – Scientists say they’ve developed a first-ever vaccine that’s designed to protect cattle from a potentially-deadly tick-borne disease that’s common in Iowa. Bovine anaplasmosis infects the red blood cells of cattle, and researcher Roman Ganta says the vaccine promises to be a tremendous game-changer. “It will change the way people raise cattle, raise meat, and milk production,” Ganta says, “as well as improve the wellbeing of many cattle farmers, especially in third world countries, besides in the U.S. how the industry is impacted.” Ganta, a professor of veterinary pathobiology at the University of Missouri, says the vaccine is performing exactly as hoped in trials.

“We found out that the animals, all the cattle that we tested, remained healthy,” he says, “whether the infection is coming from a mechanical route, which is the standard way many cattle get it in a cattle ranch, or by tick transmission.” There is no widely-available vaccine for the disease, which is blamed for causing nearly one-billion dollars in losses worldwide every year. Ganta says bovine anaplasmosis, also known as yellow bag or yellow fever, can lead to severe anemia in cattle, and in some cases, death. “We tested close to a thousand animals,” he says. “The infection prevalence is very high, which is about 50% of the cattle. It varied significantly from one cattle ranch to the other, but the fact remains that this disease has remained a high problem.”

Ganta says the vaccine will need to receive U-S-D-A approval before it can be used. He says if the testing and approval process goes well, he’s optimistic it will be available to cattle producers by 2030. The Iowa Beef Industry Council says Iowa’s cattle industry contributed nearly nine-and-a-half BILLION dollars in business activity to the state’s economy in 2023, including accounting for more than 32-thousand jobs.