Bovine tuberculosis: slow progress

The UK government pledged to eradicate bovine tuberculosis (TB) by 2038. The slow progress at the start of the TB Strategy for England prompted a comprehensive review, commissioned by the then Secretary of State, Michael Gove and led by Professor Charles Godfrey (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2018).

Since its publication in November 2018, much of the content and many of the recommendations for change have been addressed, but few have been actively implemented. Progress is slow.

Some welcome progress has been made, and the official data published in December 2022 shows that the prevalence of bovine TB has fallen in recent years in the country as a whole (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2022).

There are numerous ways of measuring and monitoring infectious disease, but probably the most direct and relevant is to monitor the rate of new infections. As a basic principle, in live-stock populations that are dynamic and where the animals have a limited lifespan, controlling infectious disease is best achieved by preventing new infections. This focuses the efforts and resources on protecting the uninfected by reducing the risks of transmission and reducing the infective load by removing the reservoirs of infection. Success is measured by monitoring new incidents, either at a population or individual animal level.