Abstract
BackgroundThe control of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) remains a priority on the public health agenda in Great Britain, after launching in 1998 the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of badger (Meles meles) culling as a control strategy. Our study complements previous analyses of the RBCT data (focusing on treatment effects) by presenting analyses of herd-level risks factors associated with the probability of a confirmed bTB breakdown in herds within each treatment: repeated widespread proactive culling, localized reactive culling and no culling (survey-only).Methodology/Principal FindingsNew cases of bTB breakdowns were monitored inside the RBCT areas from the end of the first proactive badger cull to one year after the last proactive cull. The risk of a herd bTB breakdown was modeled using logistic regression and proportional hazard models adjusting for local farm-level risk factors. Inside survey-only and reactive areas, increased numbers of active badger setts and cattle herds within 1500 m of a farm were associated with an increased bTB risk. Inside proactive areas, the number of M. bovis positive badgers initially culled within 1500 m of a farm was the strongest predictor of the risk of a confirmed bTB breakdown.Conclusions/SignificanceThe use of herd-based models provide insights into how local cattle and badger populations affect the bTB breakdown risks of individual cattle herds in the absence of and in the presence of badger culling. These measures of local bTB risks could be integrated into a risk-based herd testing programme to improve the targeting of interventions aimed at reducing the risks of bTB transmission.
Highlights
Bovine tuberculosis remains an important public health concern worldwide as a result of deficiencies in preventing and/or controlling measures targeting the spread of its causative agent Mycobacterium bovis [1,2]
Herds with the same County Parish Holding Herd numbers (CPHH: unique herd identifier) which were registered in different treatment groups (n = 14); herds which were archived before the start of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) (n = 22) and herds which showed no evidence of having had a bovine tuberculosis (bTB) disclosing test during the RBCT (n = 745) were removed from the VETNET records; leaving us with 1306 unique herds recorded in RBCT proactive areas, 1380 unique herds recorded in RBCT survey-only areas and 1320 unique herds recorded in RBCT reactive areas
Probability of confirmed bTB herd breakdown Overall, when comparing the probabilities of confirmed herd bTB breakdowns during the period under study between proactive and survey-only herds, we found that the best model included effects of triplet (p = 0.04), herd type, herd size, farm area and the historic bTB incidence for that trial area
Summary
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) remains an important public health concern worldwide as a result of deficiencies in preventing and/or controlling measures targeting the spread of its causative agent Mycobacterium bovis [1,2]. Infection with M. bovis remains a significant livestock zoonosis in the European Union where some member states experience a reemergence of the disease despite significant historical efforts to implement eradication plans. Efforts to completely eradicate bTB in Great Britain have been hampered by the maintenance of M. bovis in wildlife host populations, acting as reservoirs of infection, in particular badgers (Meles meles) [4]. The control of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) remains a priority on the public health agenda in Great Britain, after launching in 1998 the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of badger (Meles meles) culling as a control strategy. Our study complements previous analyses of the RBCT data (focusing on treatment effects) by presenting analyses of herd-level risks factors associated with the probability of a confirmed bTB breakdown in herds within each treatment: repeated widespread proactive culling, localized reactive culling and no culling (survey-only)
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