Dr. Damien Barrett:

In mentioning that a herd was closed, the Senator has addressed one of the potential sources of purchase. He also addressed the second, namely, interactions with wildlife. We have a wildlife programme, which involves a very effective combination of removal of infected badgers and vaccination. The third source is residual infection within herds. This type of infection is difficult to detect. As Dr. Fanning said in her opening statement, the tests we use have limitations. Residual infection can be fairly difficult to root out. The Senator mentioned the blood test, the purpose of which is to detect this type of infection. However, even with the interferon gamma blood test we are now using, we are still finding episodes in which there is residual infection remaining. We are currently looking at developing new tests, in collaboration with University College Dublin, UCD, and a number of private companies, that will offer increased sensitivity.

Those are the three elements impacting the purchase of the disease. The Senator is obviously very well informed about the control measures that are in place. However, infection can be difficult to detect and bovine TB is one of the diseases that causes difficulties in that regard. If we have learned one thing from Covid it is that biological entities like viruses and bacteria can outwit man. TB is very good at outwitting man.