TB in Wales

The Welsh Assembly Government, WAG, have today published a consultation document on Bovine TB, That is infection caused by Mycobacterium Bovis, in farmed species other than cattle, specified as camelids, Deer, and Goats.

The Goat Veterinary Society has been invited to respond to the consultation.

The consultation can be viewed or downloaded from this link. In case of problems, go to l<www.wales.gov.uk/bovinetb> and scrtoll to the link on the right

The consultation is intended to give specific powers to WAG Animal Health personell to test these animals for TB, and the right to order slaughter of them, with compensation to the owners, currently proposed at £100 per head for goats, £400 for deer, and somewhat more for camelids!!

That compares with the situation in England where any powers of entry are restricted tothose under the Animal Health acts rather than the TB orders, and there is no power to compel a TB test in any animal other than cattle, merely to shut down any premises where TB can reasonably suspected.

Goats producing milk for sale that has not been pasteurised, including any on products, will come under a clause which states that they must be regularly checked for TB under a control order approved by The Food Standards Agency.

The two orders concerning TB testing of Deer, will be revoked in Wales to bring all non bovine animal farmed animals under the same rule. Sheep are excepted from the order, even though there have been cases in Wales and near the border in the last two years.

Camelids, and deer in Wales will be required to be identified “In a manner approved by the Welsh Ministers”.

In situations where an owner has delayed the test, other than for reasons beyond his control, should reactors be found, the amount of compensation will be reduced on a sliding scale depending how overdue the test was, going down to 5% of full compensation if a test is more than 6 months overdue.

Provision is made for the imposition of a “Veterinary Improvement Notice”, VIN, on any property. That includes provisions to order the improvement of fencing, protection of feedstuffs including silage from wildlife, including birds, and adopting effective methods of excluding groups of animals from specified parts of the premises. This seems to me at first sight to be rather open ended, and protection of silage from wildlife, while highly desirable in theory, is very difficult in practice, especially when it comes to self feed silage clamps, and the clause could cause considerable difficulties, in particular as if reactors are found where a VIN has not been complied with, compensation payable would be reduced.

On the other hand, it is not expected that VINs will be imposed as a routine, merely where needed in a “Worst case” scenario. There is provision for appeals to be made against the terms of a VIN and resultant loss of compensation in the event of reactors being found.

The order allows WAG to serve on the animal keeper a test notice that requires the animals specified to be tested by a specified date using a “Relevant test” The skin test will be fine for goats on recent evidence. However we know of course that in Alpacas it produces a very high level of false negatives, which raises the question of what steps should be taken to separate them from other animals at shows or sales. A number of Llamas have been found to be reactors, and I assume that this has been to a skin test, but if anyone knows better do please correct me!!. The specificity of the skin test in llamas is not currently accurately known, and it has been little used in guanacos and vicunas, the other animals brought into the act. The wording appears to allow for use of blood tests in all species concerned, but the provision is a little woolly, quite possibly because the blood tests that might be used are strictly speaking still under development, and have yet to receive official verification.

As is the case elsewhere in the UK, no TB test may be carried out without written permission, in this case from Welsh Ministers, and no person may either vaccinate any of the animals concerned or treat any suspect case of TB without written permission from the Welsh Ministers.

The document seems to me to be a good step in the right direction, but also seems to need a bit of questioning of detail.

The consultation itself asks for opinions on six specific questions.

1 Are the proposed arrangements appropriate and neccessary?

2. Should a regular Tb testing regime, or a requirement for pre movement testing, be introduced for these non bovine animals?.

3 What is your view of the proposed set figures for compensation?. In the case of goats should there different figures according to age and gender?.

NOTE. There is no provision made that I can see for an appeal against compensation levels per se, only against a reduction of the compensation if made for any reason.

4 Should the proposed set figures for non bovine animals be prescribed in the order, or should they be set by an administrative process so that they might be amended more quickly without the need to amend the order?.

5. Should compensation be calculated in the way that is proposed in the draft order?.

6. Do you agree that the appeals procedure, which is set out in Annexe B, is neccessary?.

I shall draft a provisional response this weekend as a document for discussion. After talking things over with Tony Andrews, we propose sending that to the committee, and to all members in Wales or close to the border. May I ask others to let me know if you would like to see the drafts for discussion, as I am sure that the initial draft, inevitably my personal thoughts!, will be likely to need amending. A final draft will then be sent out to all GVS members before our thoughts are submitted to the WAG TB team. The closing date for submissions is November 11th.

Nick Clayton.

Return to top