Saturday, March 30, 2024

M bovis eradication programme expands

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A wider range of farms will now be part of the national beef survey under the Mycoplasma bovis eradication programme. The M bovis eradication programme is expanding the scope of beef sector surveillance to take in a broader range of farms.
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While national surveillance continues for the disease, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) says it’s important at this stage of the eradication programme to go as wide as possible.

Sampling beef breeding herds has been underway for most of 2020, but now all herds rearing beef cattle for slaughter can be selected, where previously only beef breeding herds were considered.

The minimum number of cattle required for sampling has reduced, while the maximum sample size in some regions has increased.

At this stage, it’s important the eradication programme goes as broad as possible and includes herds with a higher risk of being infected as a result of cattle movements from the dairy sector, M bovis programme director Stuart Anderson says.

Based on data so far, the programme is also confident that lowering the required sample size will pose a minimal risk of larger numbers of false positives.

National surveillance is carried out around the country to give assurance that M bovis is not widespread and on occasions it can help find the disease faster than tracing movements of infected animals.

“It will be a key component in providing confidence in the future that we are free from the disease,” Anderson said.

National surveillance includes routine testing of the dairy sector’s bulk tank milk and beef sector surveillance.

As well as sampling at meat processing plants and a national feedlot believed to be Anzco’s Five Star Beef Feedlot near Ashburton, the beef sector surveillance includes samples taken for testing at the same time as on-farm TB testing.

This is an effective method that reduces disruption to farming activities and expanding the beef sector surveillance allows the programme to survey more farms, more quickly.

“If undetected infection exists in the beef sector, the programme is more likely to find it, contain it, control it and ultimately eradicate M bovis faster,” he said.

The wider testing in the beef sector will mean some additional time will be required during TB testing, but it’s expected a very small number of properties will have further testing on top of this.

For farmers, it means infected herds will be identified more quickly and stopped from spreading the infection further, meaning faster progress will be made toward eradication of the disease from New Zealand.

M bovis was first detected in NZ in July 2017 and since then 158,400 cattle have been culled with compensation paid to date totalling $184.5 million.

A total 2288 claims have been completed and paid, with 91 claims in the processing phase.

Currently, there are seven active properties confirmed as infected with the disease, six of which are in the Ashburton region with one in the Selwyn district. All the properties in this Canterbury cluster are connected by animal movements and picked up through August and September bulk tank milk screening.

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