Bovine Tuberculosis - Towards a Science Based Control Strategy.

This article discusses various issues related to prevention of bovine tuberculosis (TB), and presents a study in this regard. In order that future TB control policies can be science based, Defra on ISG advice has put in place a comprehensive program of research to better understand the epidemiology of TB in both cattle and badgers. This research is now providing a flow of valuable data on a range of topics, extending beyond the trial on culling badgers. The Randomized Badger Culling Trial involves three experimental regimes - proactive culling, localized reactive culling and no badger culling, the latter providing a survey only control. The objective of proactive culling is to reduce badger densities to low levels across entire areas, and this is maintained by further regular culls. Reactive culling, by contrast, initiated in response to confirmed cattle TB breakdowns, focused on home ranges of badgers as a one off operation. The trial was designed to provide reliable estimates of the effects of culling on TB breakdowns by the time 50 triplet years have been accumulated and, in addition, a range of epidemiological and other data to provide a better understanding of the disease in both cattle and badgers.