DEFRA reveals Bovine TB decline

The apparent decline in the number of confirmed new herd incidents of bovine tuberculosis continues, according to latest TB statistics published by DEFRA.

Up to end of July this year there were 2008 new cases (including confirmed, unconfirmed and unclassified) of TB compared with 2353 in the same period last year – a 15% fall.

Consequently the number of animals slaughtered due to TB has fallen from 18,899 for the first seven months of 2005 to 13,098 in 2006 – a 31% fall.

However, it should be remembered that the statistics do not indicate the disease is in retreat, but merely spreading at a slower rate.

DEFRA recently published a report considering various reasons that may explain this sudden and unforeseen drop.

But it concluded that further analysis over an extended period of time would be necessary before it could be confidently explained.