AgResearch
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Toward eradication: the effect of Mycobacterium bovis infection in wildlife on the evolution and future direction of bovine tuberculosis management in New Zealand

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-03, 12:25 authored by Paul Livingstone, N Hancox, G Nugent, Geoff DeLisle
New Zealand's bovine tuberculosis (TB) control programme has greatly reduced the burden of tuberculosis on the farming industry, from 11% of mature cattle found with TB at slaughter in 1905 to <0.003% in 2012/13. New Zealand implemented TB control measures in cattle from the mid-twentieth century, and later in farmed deer. Control was based on established methods of tuberculin testing of herds, slaughter of suspect cases, and livestock movement control. Unexplained regional control failures and serious disease outbreaks were eventually linked to wildlife-vectored infection from the introduced Australian brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), which also triggered a wildlife disease complex involving a range of introduced species. This paper reviews the progressive elucidation of the epidemiology of Mycobacterium bovis in New Zealand's wildlife and farmed livestock, and the parallel development of research-led, multi-faceted TB control strategies required to protect New Zealand's livestock industries from damaging infection levels. The adoption of coordinated national pest management strategies, with increasingly ambitious objectives agreed between government and industry funders, has driven a costly but very successful management regime targeted at controlling TB in the possum maintenance host. This success has led to initiation of a strategy designed to eradicate TB from New Zealand's livestock and wildlife, which is considered a realistic long-term prospect.

History

Rights statement

© 2015 OSPRI NEW ZEALAND LTD. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Language

  • English

Does this contain Māori information or data?

  • No

Publisher

Taylor & Francis Group

Journal title

New Zealand Veterinary Journal

ISSN

0048-0169

Citation

Livingstone, P. G., Hancox, N., Nugent, G. & de Lisle, G. W. (2015) Toward eradication: the effect of Mycobacterium bovis infection in wildlife on the evolution and future direction of bovine tuberculosis management in New Zealand. New Zealand Veterinary Journal, 63(suppl 1), 4-18.