The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has spoken to the chair of the bovine tuberculosis (bTB) Partnership, John Cross, about his strategies for eradication of the disease.
In a video uploaded to Defra’s Twitter account on Tuesday (November 22), Cross spoke about the “extraordinary ancient pathogen” that is bTB.
“It’s very adept at avoiding eradication, very persistent. It has huge economic impact on farming businesses, farming families and indeed the cattle themselves,” he said.
“There are no silver bullets with this disease, it is really hard graft – eradication – and you have to have a whole toolbox of measures that you use simultaneously.”
Cross said that a blended approach was needed to achieve bTB eradication. He said the following measures had to be done simultaneously:
- Testing and tracing;
- Surveillance;
- Reactor removal;
- Biosecurity on farms;
- Monitoring of cattle movements; and
- Intervening in the link between wildlife mammals and cattle.
“It’s a jigsaw, actually, of interventions that have to be applied at the same time and if you persistently do that, then you effectively then get the pathogen into a position where it cant sustain itself,” he said.
“We are seeing positive results, we are seeing a reduction in the levels of disease, but that’s the time actually then to really focus. Once you start to succeed, you’ve got to really push hard.
“We’re working on rolling out a cattle vaccine as well, it’s a world-leading initiative, no one else has tried it. It’s going to an enormous amount of work, a lot of investment.
“But I think it’s a very brave new tool that I’m passionate about and there’s been a lot of very dedicated scientific effort gone into this,” Cross concluded.
Badger culling and vaccination
The government has announced a phased transition away from badger culling in favour of wider-scale badger vaccination as the primary TB control measure in badgers.
As a result, Natural England will not be issuing any new Badger Disease Control (intensive cull) licenses after December 2022.
To aid the transition towards widespread badger vaccination, Defra has bolstered the vaccination capacity of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to deploy badger vaccination over larger areas.
Diagnostics and surveillance
APHA is using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test which can detect TB directly from tissue samples collected at post-mortem inspection.
This method reduces the time taken for APHA laboratories to report results to livestock keepers from up to 22 weeks to three weeks.
Defra has protocols in place for voluntary private use of interferon gamma blood testing and novel non-Defra-approved TB diagnostic tests for cattle in specific circumstances.
Private testing allows farmers and their private vets to supplement Defra’s statutory testing policy to facilitate resolution of bTB breakdowns.
