M bovis programme director Stuart Anderson says 2020 has seen significant progress in driving down the number of farms affected by the cattle disease.
The year started with 25 active confirmed properties and 193 confirmed properties under active surveillance.
By late September, the number of infected properties had dwindled to one, but a cluster of new infected properties in Canterbury has the number back up to nine as of December 3.
In total, there have been 259 confirmed M bovis infected properties, of which 250 have been cleared of infection.
Of these, 137 confirmed properties have been beef, 64 dairy and 58 classified as other, including calf rearing, grazing and lifestyle.
The national surveillance programme has been actively looking for pockets of infection not currently known to the network of infected farms.
Beef surveillance as of November 11 has tested more than 86,000 cattle from 4000 farms across New Zealand with no infected properties notified.
Anderson says this continues to give confidence that the disease is not widespread in the beef sector.
Bulk milk tank (BTM) testing up until November 18 has screened 324 detect results with 13 infected properties identified following on-farm investigation.
“While we’re on track to eradication, there’s still a lot of hard work ahead of us and we do expect to find more infected herds as we track down the remaining pockets of infected farms,” he said.
“Now, we all need to stay vigilant and not ease off if we’re going to track down and eradicate this disease, one that could have caused an estimated $1.3 billion in lost productivity over 10 years.
“Eradicating it protects the productivity of the cattle sectors, reduces our reliance on antibiotics and ensures animal welfare.”
The main means of M bovis spread in NZ is through movements of infected cattle and calves drinking infected milk.
Good National Animal Identification Tracing (NAIT) records remain key in tracking movements of infected animals faster and stopping the spread of the disease.
“Incomplete NAIT records make tracing infected cattle a difficult job and our national surveillance tools like the BTM screening programme and beef sector surveillance have been developed to not only help find any remaining infection faster, but to give us all confidence long-term that NZ is free from the disease,” he said.
The eradication programme is funded by a combination of farmer levies and taxpayer money.
“The $350 million spend to date has got us to this point, but there is more work to do over the next few years as we finish tracking down infection and then testing to ensure freedom from disease,” he said.
“Given the investment to date, it’s important everyone does their bit and is vigilant with their NAIT and on-farm biosecurity.”
National surveillance includes routine testing of the dairy sector’s BTM and beef sector surveillance, both of which, Anderson says, will be a key component in providing confidence in the future that NZ is free from the disease.
Through our BTM programme several new properties were found over the 2020 spring milking season.
“This showed our national surveillance programme working as it should – detecting possible cases and showing us where we need to look to eliminate the infection,” he said.
The nine new infected properties in Canterbury, eight in Mid-Canterbury and one in the Selwyn district, were all picked up through the spring BTM testing.
All were identified through tracing animal movements from one of the three Mid-Canterbury farms initially picked up.
Anderson says this was expected.
“There continues to be no evidence this is widespread, no additional farms in the area have been detected in subsequent BTM screenings,” he said.
“It’s important to note this is not an outbreak, this supports that we are dealing with an isolated cluster connected by animal movements.
“More infected properties were expected over spring and the numbers found were well within what had been forecast.”
As fewer cases are found, the M bovis Programme’s efforts in next year will focus on national surveillance to provide confidence that the disease is eradicated.
“We’re working harder to find fewer properties and looking to track down the final infected properties and move to long term surveillance some time in 2021,” he said,
An independent technical advisory group is currently reviewing the existing performance measures and will provide technical advice to support the next stage of the programme.
Anderson expects this report will be complete in the first half of next year.
Meantime, as infected property numbers dwindle, he acknowledged the support of farmers and rural communities.
“We can not downplay the major traumatic experience for infected property farmers and rural communities, we recognise that and thank them for working through this with us,” he said.
