§ Mr. Greg KnightTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps her Department is taking to prevent the spread of bovine TB to East Yorkshire; and if she will make a statement. [150328]
§ Mr. BradshawThere have been no confirmed outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis in East Yorkshire since before January 1996. There are currently no farms under TB restrictions.
Defra is shortly to launch a public consultation on a new TB Strategy for England, which will include proposals for a range of potential measures for introduction in the short-term. These are designed to halt the geographical spread of the disease, and include pre and post-movement testing of cattle and a review of local testing frequencies. One of the major concerns of the consultation is to reduce the risk of spreading TB from areas of high incidence to areas with little or no disease.
§ Mr. PatersonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to standardise the collation of data on bovine TB in a format which allows for a comparison with the Office International des Epizootics figures for incidence of TB; what she estimates the costs of so doing would be; and what assessment she has made of the merits of so doing. [150510]
§ Mr. BradshawBovine TB is a regional problem with a higher incidence of disease in the South West of Great Britain and in Northern Ireland. Defra publishes the incidence of TB in Great Britain on a regional basis, to demonstrate the regional distribution of incidents. The OIE requires a composite annual report for the whole of the United Kingdom. The composite report indicates the average incidence of TB in the UK; but does not demonstrate the localised incidence within the regions. The composite report which is provided each year, as required for the OIE, is derived by amalgamating the regional reports for GB and Northern Ireland, therefore there would be no cost benefit in providing only a UK report and the true regional incidence of the disease would remain unclear.
In Great Britain there is an obligation under Council Directive 64/432/EEC and other Directives to provide the European Commission with herd and animal incidence figures for bovine TB every year in the prescribed format.
§ Mr. PatersonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 8 December 2003,Official Report, column 210W, what the presumptive infective dose 485W range of M. bovis is in respect of cattle; and whether some badgers suffering from bovine TB are capable of excreting sufficient numbers of M. bovis bacilli to constitute such an infective dose. [150526]
§ Mr. BradshawDetermination of the minimum infectious dose ofMycobacterium bovis in cattle is part of the TB pathogenesis research programme. Early indications are that the minimum infectious dose for cattle via the respiratory tract is relatively small; the lowest infectious dose recorded so far is 70 colony forming units (CPU) when introduced by the intracheal route or 9,600 CPU by the intranasal route.
Relatively high levels of M. bovis in the urine of badgers with renal TB have been identified. Bacterial loads of up to 300,000 CPU per millilitre of urine have been measured. This suggests that inhalation of as little as 0.03 ml of the urine could result in infection.
§ Mr. PatersonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to her answer of 8 December 2003,Official Report, column 217W, what plans she has to extend the restrictions on the sale of milk from farms under TB restrictions. [150549]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonI have been asked to reply.
The new European Union consolidated Food Hygiene Regulation, which is expected to come into force in January 2006, will not permit the sale of milk from reactor animals for human consumption—including milk that has been heat treated.