Horizon scanning: what next for bovine TB control in England?

Abstract

England is currently in year nine of its 25-year strategy to achieve TB freedom. This talk will speculate on what new tools and approaches could be introduced in the future to help us achieve our goal. Using Defra’s response to the independent review of its TB programme as a starting point and building on the plenary talk by the UK CVO, I will look at some opportunities that could arise under the different aspects of the response. Firstly, how best to help farmers reduce their herd TB risk through better informed purchasing decisions will be considered, including looking at the recent publication of the health ratings for every cattle herd in England. Cattle vaccination, and its associated DIVA test could be the biggest change in Tb control in England in many years while the related development of a molecularly defined tuberculin which could become the default testing reagent. Advances in whole genome sequencing will allow us to sequence the genome of M.bovis isolated from most infected herds in England and these data could unlock a variety of opportunities from tracing the spread of infection to ground-truthing the efficacy of testing and epidemiological assessment of breakdowns. Finally, the move to vaccination as the primary way of controlling TB in badgers with culling used very sparingly will be considered using a case study of how a targeted badger cull successfully removed infection from an area in Cumbria and enabled the switch to vaccination.