Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to develop an oral M. Bovis vaccine for badgers; and what funding from the public purse has been made available for its development.
Since 2009 Defra has spent £15 million on oral badger vaccine development, using BCG (the attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis used worldwide to vaccinate people against TB). The Animal and Plant Health Agency has identified palatable bait and practical field deployment strategies. The immunity conferred by oral vaccination of badgers with BCG tends to be more variable than that resulting from the injectable formulation of the vaccine. Therefore, current studies are focusing on producing a safe, effective and affordable vaccine which provides consistent protection when eaten by badgers.