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Bovine TB Eradication Group for England

Highlights of the fifth meeting on 10 February 2009

  1. Gabrielle Edwards gave a presentation on the Bovine TB Programme budget. This outlined the areas for compulsory and discretionary expenditure in recent years and forecasts for this year and next. It also identified where spend was England only and where Defra currently carried GB wide costs. The Group noted the pressure on the TB budget, and that in England compensation and testing account for the vast proportion of the spend. The Group was also interested in ways to improve salvage values and to reduce haulage costs.

  2. James Cooper gave a presentation on the TB Vaccines Programme, including setting out the current estimated timelines for delivery of an injectable badger vaccine in 2010, an oral badger vaccine in late 2014 and a cattle vaccine (with a test to differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals) by 2015.  The Group considered the developing proposals for a multi-year Injectable Badger Vaccine Deployment Project and reinforced the conclusion that the project must be designed to identify beneficial effects in cattle. The Group agreed to continue to input to the project development, including future discussion of criteria for the selection of areas which might be suitable for deployment of the vaccine.  It emphasised that vaccination could be useful as part of an eradication programme, but was only another tool in the box. The Group highlighted the uncertainties around the current timeline on cattle vaccines and the need to consider the impact that cattle vaccines might have on trade under current rules.

  3. The Group discussed a paper looking at addressing the routes of infection from badgers and possible control strategies for controlling badgers in high prevalence and edge of high prevalence areas.    The Group agreed that there was a need for a comprehensive, coherent package looking at a range of measures to eradicate TB and different approaches to wildlife would need to be adopted in different areas of the country.

  4. The Group received an update on the progress of developing an eradication plan, noted the preliminary draft and will provide further comments at later meetings.

  5. Linda Evans from Animal Health provided an update on how Disease Report Forms are used to assess and record the details of a breakdown.  The Group discussed how these data could be better captured in future and agreed to consider further information on closed herds.


Page last modified: 11 February 2009