UK Parliament / Open data

Bovine Tuberculosis

Written question asked by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative) on Wednesday, 11 June 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 3 June 2008. It was answered by Jonathan Shaw (Labour) on Wednesday, 11 June 2008 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what percentage of cows receiving positive (a) gamma interferon blood tests and (b) skin tests for bovine tuberculosis were subsequently demonstrated to be clear of the disease at post mortem in each of the last five years.

Answer

It is a misconception that failure to find post-mortem evidence of bovine TB in animals that have previously had a positive reaction to a TB test means such animals are clear of the disease. It is frequently not possible to see typical signs of disease with the naked eye, or to culture the bacterium from tissue samples. Diagnostic tests are more effective at identifying infected cattle than post mortem analyses. The primary purpose of post mortem analyses is to support epidemiological investigations and the management of TB outbreaks, not to validate ante-mortem tests.An important point to note is that the TB testing programme aims to identify and confirm bovine TB on a herd rather than an individual animal basis. Meaningful "confirmation" rates for gamma interferon reactors, in particular, cannot be provided, as a significant proportion of gamma interferon positive animals are not subject to laboratory culture, as infection has already been identified in the herd.

Type
Written question
Reference
477 c268-9W; 208239
Session
2007-08
Back to top