Eliminating bovine tuberculosis from Australia

Bovine tuberculosis eradication in Australia

The national bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis eradication pro­ gramme in Australia was developed in 1968 and officially started in July 1970 on a regional basis. The method of prophylaxis of bovine tuberculosis consis­ ted of a strict identification and systematic tuberculin testing of cattle as well as the inspection of carcasses at the abattoir in order to find the original herd of tubercu...

Eliminating bovine tuberculosis in cattle and badgers: insight from a dynamic model

Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) is a multi-species infection that commonly affects cattle and badgers in Great Britain. Despite years of study, the impact of badgers on BTB incidence in cattle is poorly understood. Using a two-host transmission model of BTB in cattle and badgers, we find that published data and parameter estimates are most consistent with a system at the threshold of control. The mos...

Eliminating latent tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is recognized as the world's leading bacterial cause of death. Yet 95% of infection is believed to exist in an asymptomatic 'latent' form that is defined not by the identification of bacteria, but by the host immune response in the form of reactivity to tuberculosis proteins in the tuberculin skin test. It seems likely that clinically defined latent tuberculosis actually represents...

Lessons learned during the successful eradication of bovine tuberculosis from Australia

There are very few international examples of the successful eradication of bovine tuberculosis (TB, caused by infection with Mycobacterium bovis) from a national cattle population. This paper presents a brief overview of the successful TB eradication programme in Australia from 1970, with primary emphasis on lessons of international relevance that were learned from the Australian experience. Th...

Bovine Tuberculosis