Bovine TB: Ninth TB Advisory Group meeting Wednesday 19 September 2007
Summary of discussion
1. The meeting focused on a discussion of Defra’s approach to developing policy options for the potential use of cattle and badger vaccines. Defra began by outlining the background on vaccines and the current policy approach. The papers presented to the Group will be used in Defra’s wider discussions with stakeholders in due course. The Group was then asked for its views and comments.
Overall approach
2. The Group queried whether Defra was planning to use cattle and badger vaccines together to help control bovine TB (bTB). Defra confirmed that at present it was an either, and/or, approach but a badger vaccine was likely to be available before a cattle vaccine, so Defra would envisage initially using them individually.
3. The Group were pleased to learn that (although still early days) the preliminary results of vaccines studies were encouraging but stressed that Defra needed to manage stakeholder expectations by presenting cost and benefit analyses for all the possible policy scenarios. The Group suggested stakeholders would want to know the answer to questions such as ‘what percentage of the cattle population needed to be vaccinated in order to control the disease?’ and ‘what herd types/ business sectors should vaccination be targeted to?”
4. The Group also suggested that in order to establish the cost effectiveness of vaccines, Defra should undertake a cost and benefit analysis of the existing bTB controls, as well as the ISG’s recommendations on increasing cattle controls. However, the Group stressed that Defra should be very clear about what cost effectiveness meant, i.e. cost effective to whom?
5. The Group believed that a vaccine policy would be expensive in the short term but in the longer term the costs would be reduced and that cost/benefit analyses should be done for various time scales (including the long term) so that the effect of time on the cost/benefit relationship would be clear.
Delivery of vaccines
6. The Group was then asked who it thought should administer a vaccine. The Chair stated that it would depend on whether it required legal certification by a suitably qualified person. The Group confirmed farmers would want the option of self-vaccinating their animals. The Group also believed that it was important to have a central point of reporting when and where vaccines were being used to monitor and assess the effectiveness of vaccination.
Cattle vaccination
7. At present there is no EU agreement to vaccinate for bTB. If vaccination was permitted within the UK, Defra asked whether the Group thought that vaccinated animals would be devalued. The Group recognised there would be concerns about the implications on trade for vaccinated animals. However, the Group stated that farmers would always prefer to buy from TB-free areas but vaccinated animals would be the next best option and the price would reflect that.
8. The Group was asked whether it thought cattle vaccines should be voluntary or compulsory. The Group felt that there would need to be an incentive to encourage voluntary uptake. A voluntary scheme could be linked to an accreditation scheme, which would put a premium on valuation of animals. However, a voluntary scheme would give the short term costs to the Government but it would have longer term benefits for industry and the Government’s long-term budget. If vaccination were made compulsory the Group felt industry would need to be convinced of the benefits for them.
9. The Group felt cattle vaccination would be most attractive to herd owners closest to the disease who were more at risk of infection. The Group agreed that those in hotspot areas and new breakdown areas would be more willing to use vaccination, possibly as a reaction to a cluster of breakdowns rather than a single incident. In addition, farmers in clean areas would also be likely to vaccinate to reduce the risk of introducing the disease into their herd.
Badger vaccination
10. The Group was concerned that estimates would be needed of the proportion of badgers needing to be vaccinated in order to control the disease in badgers. The Group thought that vaccination of a sufficient proportion might not be achieved through individual farmer input, therefore the Government would need to coordinate badger vaccination. The Group also suggested Defra might ask a mathematical epidemiologist to identify the key assumptions and predictions of the costs of various percentages of uptakes to demonstrate what the likely outcome and impacts may be in various scenarios. This information could then be presented to the wider stakeholder community for them to consider themselves.
11. In addition, the Group did not believe there would be any workable scenario in which farmers were expected to handle and inject badgers with a vaccine. Instead the Group thought farmers would be happy for private companies to come onto their land, trap badgers and vaccinate them. But this approach would be costly so it would need to be targetted. The Group believed deployment of oral vaccines would be relatively easy to organize but it needed a commitment to deliver over a large area to be successful so again would need to be centrally organized. The Group suggested Defra might explore how France tackled rabies as they successfully tackled that disease by vaccination on a regional basis, but organized it centrally.
Responsibility and cost sharing
12. The Group stated that it did not think industry would pay for the costs towards research and development of a vaccine. However, the Group agreed it would not be unreasonable to ask farmers to pay for cattle vaccination, e.g. a similar cost-sharing approach to pre-movement testing.
13. The Group recommended that the relative merits of using cattle and badger vaccines needed to be kept under review. The Group looked forward to working with Defra and wider stakeholders to consider these issues in more depth in due course.
Those present:
Peter Jinman (Chairman)
Brian Jennings
Bill Madders
James Kirkwood
Andrew Cunningham
Gabrielle Edwards,
Defra
Fiona Stuart, Defra
Benika Raybould, Defra
James Cooper, Defra
Teresa Filley, Defra, TB Advisory Group Secretary
5 November 2007
Page last modified: 28 January, 2008