Myhealthyherd director, Dick Sibley, is using the principles that MHH uses for the control of infectious disease such as Johnes and BVD to improve TB management on a large dairy farm in Devon. In the same way as the MHH system for Johnes control looks at all the risks of entry and risks of spread with MAP, Dick is looking at all the possible transmission routes for the spread of M.bovis in this large commercial dairy that has been locked up under TB restrictions for over five years.
The novelty of the system has been to utilise two new tests to detect infected and infectious animals that have not been detected by the standard skin test. These organism based tests take a totally different approach to detection compared to the immunity based SCITT and Gamma Interferon tests currently being used. The phage test developed by Cath Rees at Nottingham detects very low numbers of organisms in white blood cells, while the PCR test used by Warwick University looks for M.bovis in faeces and saliva. Alarmingly, there are cattle in the herd shedding large amounts of M.bovis in their faeces that have not been detected by over 30 skin tests in their lifetime.
The focus has been to identify infectious cattle and remove or manage the risks, but also to manage other biosecurity and biocontainment risks which have been discovered, particularly from wildlife and from contaminated faeces.
For more details, go to The Times article, The Guardian article, the Farming Today broadcast.