Cattle Movement Key to TB Spread

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Friday, 27 May 2005

The movement of cattle around Britain is the most important known factor in the spread of bovine TB, a study says.

Badgers have long been blamed for the spread of TB in UK herds and the government has threatened a cull if further studies back this up.

Conservationists said the evidence for this link was slight and have seized on the new analysis, published in Nature.

An association with badgers is found in the study - but not a prominent one - according to the UK-Belgian team. At least one of the factors is that animals get moved around a lot more today

"Movement is more important in spreading TB than anything else from the national point of view," co-author William Wint, of the Environmental Research Group in Oxford, told the BBC News website.

"Our study certainly doesn't let badgers off the hook, but then it doesn't hang them up on a cross either."

Three thousand, three hundred British farms are thought to be infected with bovine tuberculosis, with the figure rising at 18% each year.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk