South Australian researchers are trying to find a way of preventing calves being carriers for a disease that could cost producers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The infection, Bovine Pestivirus, is estimated to be in as many as 91.5 per cent of Australian beef and dairy cattle herds.
University of Adelaide PhD student Sasha Lanyon says the disease can lower the immune system of cows and cause stillbirths and reduced conception rates.
She says symptoms of the disease are hard to detect in cows, which then pass it on to calves, so she is trying to come up with a test that can detect the disease before the calf is born.
"They're little virus factories. They spread the virus in everything they do and they transmit the virus between herds and sustain it within the herd they're in as well.
"The diagnostic tests we have at the moment are only able to identify these calves after they've been born."