Massive rise in bTB incidence for first five months of 2008

Official figures for the first five months of 2008 show an astonishing 40 per cent increase in the number of cattle slaughtered because of the disease, to over 17,000, compared with the same period last year.

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There has also been a 19 per cent rise in the number of herds confirmed with the disease on 2007, which, itself, turned out to be a record year for bTB incidence.

As of May 31, nearly 9 per cent of British herds were under movement restrictions due to a TB incident or over due TB test.

The figures show TB incidence is rising across all parts of England and Wales and in both hotspot and relatively clean areas.

In a statement, Defra said bTB was ‘cyclical in nature with variations occurring both seasonally and over longer timescales’ and that the ‘long-term trend is more significant than month-by-month differences’.

“Care should be taken not to read too much into short-term changes,” it said.

It suggested that ‘increased and more targeted testing’ was leading to the detection of more disease. Official figures show only a very small increase in the number of cattle tested this year, although there have been more gamma interferon (gIFN) tests.

Separate figures show the proportion of positive-cattle tested with gIFN rose from 8.5 per cent (998) in January-May 2007 to 15 per cent (2,368) this year.

Andrew Biggs, a British Cattle Veterinary Association senior vice-president, was adamant the latest figures did not represent a short-term blip.

“Variations in previous years may have been to do with the cyclical nature of TB but this year the difference is substantial. This is a true increase, not background random noise,” said Mr Biggs, a Devon vet.

“It shows that TB is not being controlled and is slowly but surely moving into new areas. It makes it even more frustrating that we do not have any measures that could bring it under control.”

The NFU’s TB spokesman Jan Rowe said ‘nobody could put finger on’ why disease levels were rising so fast.

“I think it’s just the general level of infection, particularly in wildlife, which seems to be absolutely atrocious. There is a constant spill back effect and the problem is getting worse and worse,” he said.

He said the figures showed pre-movement testing was a ‘complete waste of time’ as disease levels were actually increasing in relatively clean areas like eastern England.

Defra said the evidence was that the policy was ‘helping to identify bTB cases’ and had detected 800 reactors in 442 herds in England since 2005.

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