§ Mr. GrayTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the current incidence of tuberculosis in badgers. [74689]
§ Mr. RookerWe do not have information on the current incidence of TB in badgers across GB.
Badger carcases from various sources have been examined by MAFF since 1974. These include carcases from badger removal operations carried out under the interim strategy between 1982 and 1997, taken from areas of high TB incidence in cattle herds, where badgers were thought to be implicated in the spread of bovine TB to cattle. There were also carcases examined following road traffic accidents.
Summarised are the results of the badger carcases examined by the Ministry and the percentage found positive for TB following laboratory culture. As these badgers were collected from limited areas of the country they are not representative of the incidence of TB in the badger population as a whole.
Year Total badger carcases examined Percentage of which found positive for TB 1975 100 24.0 1976 203 15.8 1977 184 15.3 1978 221 9.0 1979 489 10.2 1980 513 8.9 1981 260 9.2 1982 691 11.0 1983 995 13.7 1984 1,265 14.3 1985 1,120 13.3 1986 785 16.1 1987 733 12.7 1988 778 27.2 1989 727 16.8 1990 810 19.4 1991 990 16.3 1992 1,054 20.0 1993 1,093 27.4 1994 1,683 22.9 1995 1,509 28.1 1996 1,911 25.2 1997 2,447 27.9 Source:
CVL(E) Wildlife Unit Badger Database
MAFF is now removing badgers only in trial areas and the Independent Scientific Group overseeing the culling trial will need time to assess the results as they become 188W available. The results will give an indication of the level of TB in badgers but initially only in those areas where the trial takes place.
The National Road Traffic Accident Survey ended in 1991. The Krebs Report recommended a limited reintroduction of the survey as it would give a good indication of the disease in the badgers sampled. We are considering how to take this forward.
§ Mr. GrayTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about progress in the implementation of the Krebs report. [74688]
§ Mr. RookerThe strategy I announced last August is designed to provide an effective science-based approach to controlling TB in cattle. It was based on the recommendations published in the Krebs Report. Progress on implementation is as follows
to minimise the risk to humans and investigate potential links with human health. Quarterly meetings with the Department of Health and other public health interests have been established.the development of a vaccine. The Krebs report recognised that this is possibly the best long term solution which could take 10 to 15 years. There is not necessarily any guarantee of success. However, I fully support this development and MAFF will be spending more than £1.3 million on it per year.research initiative to improve our understanding of the disease and how it spreads. The MAFF research programme had been revised on line with Krebs' recommendations and the budget has been increased from £1.7 million to £3.1 million in 1999–2000. We will shortly announce details of the research projects being funded from 1999 for the next three years. We are looking at factors such as the diagnostic skin test, the possible use of blood tests and the reliability of laboratory culture to see if we can identify improvement in testing and diagnosis to enable us to detect the disease more quickly. In addition, we propose to introduce a new epidemiological questionnaire to gather information on a full range of factors which might affect the spread of TB. This includes wildlife, but also husbandry practices, nutrition and the local terrain and climate. The questionnaire was piloted last autumn and points arising from the pilot study are currently under consideration. It will shortly be made publicly available.the Government should work with the farming industry to improve husbandry methods to minimise contact between cattle and badgers. We are reviewing advice provided to farmers on husbandry and disease control. The epidemiological survey referred to above will enable us to identify best husbandry practice.a randomised culling trial designed to test the effectiveness of different strategies and to provide unambiguous evidence of the role of badgers in cattle TB. Three badger treatment strategies will be compared in 30 areas grouped into 10 triplets. The first two triplets have been identified: one in Devon/Cornwall and the other in Gloucester/Herefordshire. Badger culling has been carried out in the pro-active areas of the Devon Cornwall triplet. We had hoped to have both the Pro-active culled before the closed season, but the terrain in the Gloucestershire triplet proved to be difficult and it will not be possible to complete the pro-active cull here until after the closed season. However, additional funding has been made available and more staff are being recruited to deal with the increased workload for the coming year. The remaining triplets will be identified by the Independent Scientific Group using scientific criteria and will be located in areas of high TB risk.