Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) tuberculin skin tests and (b) gamma interferon tests have been conducted in each year since 2010; and how many cases of bovine TB have been detected by each method.

a). Tuberculin skin tests carried out each year between 2010 and 2015 in England:-

b). Number of gamma interferon tests carried out each year between 2010 and 2015 in England:-

Gamma interferon tests are supplementary blood tests, which are performed in herds already under TB restrictions to supplement the skin test and speed up the detection of infected animals. Therefore, such tests could not generate any new herd breakdowns (‘cases’) in 2010-2015. i.e. the number of new cases of bTB detected by gamma interferon tests in England in all those years was nil.

All the new cases of bTB were detected by skin testing of cattle herds or individual animals, with the exception of a small proportion that were first identified through routine post-mortem meat inspection of cattle. Slaughterhouse cases trigger approximately 15% of the total number of new bTB breakdowns detected each year in England.