Animal health minister Elliot Morley described the statement by a Welsh vet that the TB outbreak could be “as serious, if not more serious” than Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) as misleading.
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Morley said TB in cattle was confined to a small percentage of the UK national herd and was an entirely different disease to foot and mouth.
He stressed the Government was not complacent about the problem of TB and that vets were giving high priority to reducing the backlog of herds with outstanding TB tests.
Up to £45m (US$m) a year was spent covering all aspects of bovine TB during 1999, 2000 and 2001.
“People should be very cautious about drawing comparisons about the rate of TB from the current figures because we are prioritising the testing of herds to concentrate on those where there is a higher risk that the disease is present.
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By GlobalData“The results are inevitably distorted and may look worse than they actually are,” he said.
It is unhelpful to compare the bovine TB organism with FMD virus. Whilst both organisms are infectious, FMD virus is highly contagious and rapidly spreads within and between herds, whereas both the spread of Mycobacterium bovis infection and development of disease are much slower and for many years has been confined to limited areas of the country.
