DAERA Minister welcomes Transformation funding for cross-border Bovine Tuberculosis Research Project
Date published:
DAERA Minister Andrew Muir has today welcomed a £4million allocation from the Transformation Fund for the public sector to a cross-border research project into bovine tuberculosis (TB).
This bovine TB research is the first regionalised project of its kind to tackle the disease with a holistic package of measures centred around wildlife, cattle and people.
Operating in the Derry City and Strabane region in Northern Ireland, and north-east Donegal in the Irish Republic, it has already secured around £5.6million from the Irish Government’s Shared Island Fund and will focus on a range of measures implemented on a co-ordinated regional basis, to support the reduction of bovine TB incidence and transmission.
The approach will include implementing and monitoring interventions simultaneously across:
• Wildlife: Reducing bovine TB infection levels in local badger population through a Test and Vaccinate or Remove approach – subject to statutory licensing approvals. This involves capturing badgers, testing them for bovine TB, vaccinating those that test negative and removing those that test positive.
• Cattle: Enhanced testing including enhanced use of interferon gamma blood testing in breakdown herds, piloting the use of six-monthly skin testing of cattle and enhanced herd breeding management through genotyping analysis.
• People: Enhanced biosecurity through private veterinary practitioner led on-farm advice, and establishment of regional eradication partnership groups with local farmers.
DAERA Minister Andrew Muir said: “The allocation of transformation funding, in addition to the funding already committed by the Irish Government under the Shared Island Initiative, is very welcome. International experience has shown that no country has been successful in substantially reducing or eradicating bovine TB without the progression of a regionalisation approach. Up until now such an approach for tackling bovine TB has not yet been tried on the island of Ireland. Successful completion of this project will help develop further evidence on which to base future deployment of measures within the wider bovine TB Programme.”
Successful delivery of the project is dependent on high levels of stakeholder engagement. Around 96% of local farmers in the area have already granted permission for DAERA to carry out a badger sett survey on their land, which commenced in January.
While there is a strong history of co-operation between DAERA and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, this is the first time both departments have taken a collaborative approach to bovine TB management in areas crossing the border.
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