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Tuberculosis Eradication Programme

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 May 2020

Wednesday, 27 May 2020

Questions (651)

Pauline Tully

Question:

651. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the status of the badger tuberculosis vaccination programme introduced in January 2018; his views on its success as a means of eradicating tuberculosis in cattle; the number of badgers vaccinated by county in each of the years 2018, 2019 and to date in 2020; and his plans to expand the programme. [7394/20]

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Written answers

In February 2018, I announced that vaccination of badgers against tuberculosis (TB) had commenced as an integral part of the bovine TB eradication programme. Vaccination would commence in areas where successful field trials had already taken place with a view to gradually rolling it out to other parts of the country over time. As I stated then, my view is that this marks a major step forward in the bovine TB eradication programme, enabling Ireland to work towards the eradication of bovine TB in a controlled holistic way, which will serve to protect the badger population whilst also protecting cattle and the livelihoods of farmers.

The Deputy should be aware, however, that some level of badger culling in response to severe TB episodes will still be required. Badger culling contributed significantly to the very considerable improvement in the disease situation nationally in recent years. However, culling of badgers is not sustainable in the long term given its ultimate impact on badger ecology and Ireland’s commitments under the Berne convention. The vaccination trials referred to, carried out between 2013 and 2017, took place following 15 years of research work using BCG vaccine to prevent tuberculosis infection in badgers. The peer-reviewed published trials demonstrated that vaccination is no less effective than culling. Badger vaccination will therefore represent a fundamental part of the TB Wildlife Programme and allow for a reduction in the numbers of badgers being culled over the coming years while still maintaining effective control of the risk posed to cattle.

In 2019, vaccination Technical Team Co-ordinators were appointed by my Department and training of staff in all offices was also carried out. The areas that were chosen in this first large extension of vaccination were those areas that had lower incidence of bovine TB and where the areas had been prepared for changeover to vaccination by lowering badger densities as a result of ongoing badger removal. The result of this was that, in late 2019, most counties in the country had areas within them that changed over to vaccination. The changeover in late 2019 represented an increase of the area subject to vaccination increasing from 7,887km2 to 17,748km2 and it is intended to continue to increase the area under vaccination in the coming years.

Recent IT improvements now allow for every badger in the vaccination area to be recorded electronically when and where it is captured and vaccinated. Currently, approximately 70% of badgers being captured in vaccination areas are new captures and have not been vaccinated previously. This is expected to fall over time as greater population penetration is achieved. Of the 1,870 badgers that were captured in the vaccination area last year, 1,391 were vaccinated with BCG, 42 were removed for epidemiological reasons, 434 had been previously vaccinated and 3 were euthanized for health reasons. Badger vaccination efforts vary from region to region at different times of the year based on disease risk and disease priorities.

The numbers of badgers vaccinated by County for 2019 and for the first six weeks of 2020 are set out in the following table. More up todate numbers will be available shortly.

County

WUS 2019 Vaccination

WUS 2020 Vaccination - First 6 weeks

Carlow

0

0

Cavan

42

24

Clare

0

0

Cork

131

62

Donegal

29

23

Dublin

11

0

Galway

103

36

Kerry

21

58

Kildare

0

32

Kilkenny

320

78

Laois

36

35

Leitrim

0

0

Limerick

18

23

Longford

67

40

Louth

55

35

Mayo

27

31

Meath

9

0

Monaghan

62

27

Offaly

43

33

Roscommon

65

18

Sligo

0

0

Tipperary

155

60

Waterford

189

38

Westmeath

0

0

Wexford

0

41

Wicklow

8

0

Precise information related to the numbers of badgers vaccinated by county for 2018 are not available as the only areas in the vaccination zones in 2018 were the former vaccination trial areas. Vaccination of badgers in 2018 continued at the levels experienced during the trials, i.e. at a rate of approximately 1,000 per year. This is in comparison to the default procedure of removing badgers which continued at approximately 6,000 badgers per year but which reduced last year to 5,352 as badger vaccination increased.

The 2018 End of Year Report for the Department’s Wildlife Unit is available at:

www.agriculture.gov.ie/media/migration/animalhealthwelfare/diseasecontrols/tuberculosistbandbrucellosis/tbforum/2018NPWSEndofYearReport090819.pdf.

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