Bovine TB: Bovine TB in the pilot badger cull zone in Gloucestershire

• Autores: Rosie Woodroffe
• Localización: Veterinary Record, ISSN-e 2042-7670, Vol. 176, Nº. 10, 2015, págs. 258-258
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • BLOWEY and others (VR, February 21, 2015, vol 176, p 208) note the small scale and short duration of their assessment of cattle TB rates in some herds within the Gloucestershire badger cull zone. Nevertheless, their letter has been widely portrayed as evidence that the cull ‘has reduced’ cattle TB (eg, Hyde 2015).

    In addition to the caveats they raise themselves, their analysis generates two questions. First, why did they select monitoring periods 18 months apart? Routine testing is conducted annually, and so selecting monitoring periods separated by periods which are not multiples of one year risks bias towards particular herd types. Moreover, a herd with a prolonged breakdown detected in the first time period (and hence at high risk of repeat breakdown) might not receive a routine test during the second period and would be excluded from the analysis.