Skip to main content
Normal View

Animal Diseases

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 February 2022

Thursday, 10 February 2022

Questions (174)

Steven Matthews

Question:

174. Deputy Steven Matthews asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the details of research carried out by his Department in the past five years in the west County Wicklow area regarding the potential benefits of vaccinating badgers as opposed to culling them to prevent the spread of tuberculosis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6050/22]

View answer

Written answers

One of my key priorities is reducing the TB rates across the country. We are starting to see positive trends in this space with the work of the TB Forum and its working groups implementing the new TB Strategy which I launched in 2020.

Vaccination of badgers has not yet been incorporated into the eradication programme in West Wicklow as the disease situation in the area is not yet suitable for vaccine use. The results of the field research carried out in other areas, however, are applicable to Wicklow and hopefully it will be possible to transition to vaccination in time.

My officials have carried out scientific research on the effectiveness of badger vaccination in a number of locations across Ireland over the years, in collaboration with researchers from University College Dublin.

A field trial in County Kilkenny using the BCG vaccine and a blind placebo demonstrated that vaccination, with an efficacy of 60%, could lower the R value (reproductive ratio) of badger-to-badger TB spread from 1.22 to 0.5. A further trial, termed the Non-Inferiority Trial was subsequently carried out in 7 areas of the country over 7 years, finishing in 2017. As the efficacy of BCG vaccination in reducing the spread of M.Bovis between badgers was proven in the Kilkenny trial, this subsequent trial examined whether vaccinating badgers would keep spread to cattle suppressed. Vaccination was carried out in a large part of a county and was compared to culling badgers (in response to TB breakdowns) in another similarly sized part of the counties. This provided a favourable outcome.

My Department’s policy is now to convert all areas to vaccination when appropriate conditions for conversion from culling to vaccination apply. This is happening on an on-going basis.

As part of an ecological study, when the N11 in East Co. Wicklow was upgraded to M11 status, 90% of the badgers in the vicinity of the road building were vaccinated to mitigate against spread of TB into adjacent cattle populations. Badgers were monitored over many years. This information is published in peer reviewed journals.

Top
Share