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Quantifying badger exposure and the risk of bovine tuberculosis for cattle herds in county Kilkenny, Ireland.

Authors :
Olea-Popelka FJ
Phelan J
White PW
McGrath G
Collins JD
O'keeffe J
Duggan M
Collins DM
Kelton DF
Berke O
More SJ
Martin SW
Source :
Preventive veterinary medicine [Prev Vet Med] 2006 Jul 17; Vol. 75 (1-2), pp. 34-46. Date of Electronic Publication: 2006 Feb 20.
Publication Year :
2006

Abstract

The objectives of the study were to quantify the levels of badger exposure for cattle and to test the hypothesis that increased badger exposure does not increase the risk of bovine tuberculosis (BTB) in a herd. Information that became available from the targeted removal of badgers over the study period, and from a badger-removal project in county Kilkenny, during 1996-1999 was used. The specific location of cattle within each farm, and the length of time that cattle spent in each farm field during the grazing season, and in the barnyard during winter, was used to build an exposure coefficient to quantify the amount of badger exposure that cattle encountered either on pasture or in the barn. The study design was a matched case-control study in which the control herds were selected using incidence density sampling. During the 4-year study period, 543 badgers were removed and of these 96 badgers were classified as tuberculosis positive; 96 BTB herd breakdowns occurred. There was a significant association between case herds and having a higher badger sett exposure coefficient during 1996-1998. No significant association between case herds and having a higher exposure coefficient based on the number of badgers, or the number of tuberculous badgers, during September 1997-December 1999 was found.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
0167-5877
Volume :
75
Issue :
1-2
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Preventive veterinary medicine
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
16488029
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2006.01.014