Vol. 420 No. 3
161 Mr. Yates asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will ensure that, at meat factories where TB reactor cattle are slaughtered, a blood test will be carried out to verify whether disease was actually present in the animals or not so as to definitely inform such livestock owners as to the prevalence of the disease where there are no lesions showing in the carcasses; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The existing intradermal tuberculin test is the officially recognised test for bovine TB, both at EC level and internationally and there are no proposals to diminish the status of that test. The absence of visible lesions at post mortem examination does not mean that the animal does not have bovine TB. In some cases reactor animals will have been identified before lesions develop while in other cases, lesions, though present, may be so small as to be undetectable by visual examination.
It is hoped that in the future a suitable blood test could be used to augment the tuberculin test. In this regard a number of research projects into the development of diagnostic blood based tests are being undertaken. While the results are encouraging it will be necessary to carry out extensive field trials to assess their effectiveness.
