Effective mitigation measures against TB
Animal rights campaigners, and farmers across the land will soon be rejoicing at the launch of a group of pioneering new products that are set to save farmers millions of pounds across the country, and also potentially save the lives of untold numbers of cows.
| Animal Health
I an Hughes, the 28 year old director of Farming Solutions ltd, has been involved in farming since he could walk and has recently turned inventor, having identified not only a huge problem for farmers across the country, but also a fantastic solution.
Badgers are common place on English farms, and despite their portrayal in‘ The animals of Farthing wood’ they are not actually good news! British farmers loose on average an eye watering £ 14,000 annually on dealing with the damage caused by TB, often spread by the nocturnal badger in the form of urination and saliva. Not only that, as a result hundreds of thousands of cows must be killed – and ever since January the 1st 2008, there has been 234,195 cows culled solely due to the rampant virus.
That number, however, could soon plummet considerably with the introduction of TB Busters and its innovative range of solutions to help combat this devastating and costly disease.
“ Whilst you may not be able to completely stop badgers from contaminating your farm, what you can do is take a number of measures to minimize the contact they have with your livestock. I designed and invented the TB Buster mineral stand as a simple and cost effective way of keeping the badgers away from the feed, and the benefits of this expand further than just reducing the risk of TB, it also means the buckets last on average 20 % longer without hampering the cattles ability to eat from it and it has already been approved by the Southwest TB Advice Group, and also scientifically tested by The Royal Agricultural University of Cirencester.
In addition to this I have a number of other products currently being tested ready for launch later in 2017 as recognition for my product and its applications start to grow, and I’ m due to fund testing for additional badger-proof products that will help farmers stay TB free. I am also now the only company offering completely bespoke individualized solutions to your TB problems one farm at a time- I use high tech night vision cameras to gauge the most problematic areas in each farm and identify where my products will be best used in order to best combat TB, and also to provide farmers with the peace of mind that they are doing their part in reducing the spread of TB in
England.
If this sounds like a problem that you or somebody you know can relate to, you can speak to speak to Alan on: 07890 325264 or see his range of products at www. tbbusters. co. uk
Foot-and-mouth crises to be averted with vaccination strategy
Future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease( FMD) can be controlled effectively and quickly with vaccinations – saving millions of pounds and hundreds of thousands of livestock – according to research by the University of Warwick.
D r Michael Tildesley and Naomi Bradbury in the School of Life Sciences have discovered that a key issue for successfully containing and eradicating a FMD outbreak is to establish how many animals can be vaccinated per day, and tailor controls accordingly.
Using a mathematical model of the UK farming landscape, Dr Tildesley and colleagues simulated numerous scenarios of infection – to varying levels of severity and speed- calculating the most effective and efficient approaches to stave the spread of disease.
Many dangerous uncertainties exist when dealing with epidemics like FMD, such as: the efficacy of vaccinations, the time it takes for livestock to become immune after receiving vaccines, and the number of vaccine doses available. Uncertainty leads to huge potential losses of both money and livestock.
The Warwick FMD model demonstrates that the major uncertainty to be resolved is how many vaccine doses are available. If this is known, the infection can be contained efficiently – even when faced with all other unknown factors.
The 2001 FMD outbreak cost the UK economy an estimated £ 8 billion and led to the culling of approximately seven million livestock.
Using the Warwick FMD model and confirming what vaccination capacity exists, the UK could save up to £ 50 million, and around 200,000 animals could be spared from culling in any future epidemic.
Furthermore, any outbreak using such tailored vaccination can generally be eradicated almost a week sooner than previous outbreaks. Dr Michael Tildesley comments:“ There is always uncertainty in the likely effectiveness of any control strategy for an infectious disease outbreak. However in the case of FMD, if we can accurately determine the daily capacity to vaccinate animals, we can potentially save millions of pounds for the farming industry.”
The paper,‘ Quantifying the Value of Perfect Information in Emergency Vaccination Campaigns’ is published in PLOS Computational Biology.
The research was carried out in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University, Vanberbilt University and the United States Geological Survey is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council( BBSRC) and the US National Institutes of Health( NIH).
www. farmingmonthly. co. uk March 2017 | Farming Monthly | 21