Cattle in England to get tuberculosis vaccine from 2030 as badger cull to end

Cattle will be vaccinated against tuberculosis from 2030 as a “gamechanging” part of a new strategy to drive eradication of the disease in England by 2038. In parallel, the last badger culls are expected to end by 2029, with vaccination of badgers expanded.

More than 20,000 infected cattle are slaughtered each year, costing taxpayers £100m and inflicting a heavy toll on affected farmers’ livelihoods and mental health. Mass culling of badgers began in 2013 and has killed about 250,000 animals, at a cost of about £60m.

The cull has been highly divisive, and the new strategy was developed by a group of farmers, vets, wildlife experts and government officials in order to seek consensus. It acknowledges that cattle catch TB from other cattle 15 times more often than from badgers.

As a result, the focus of the strategy is on cattle, including targeted vaccination, improved testing and reducing the risk of spread between herds via cattle trading, for example by publishing monthly TB risk scores for every cattle herd in England.

Cattle vaccination has long been seen as a powerful tool in eradicating bovine TB (BTB) but is banned in the European Union as it can be hard to distinguish between infected and vaccinated animals. Therefore, a “Diva” test that does this will also need to be rolled out in 2030.

Diplomatic work is needed to enable cattle and dairy farmers to continue to export their products. Government officials were involved in developing the strategy and ministers are expected to implement its recommendations.

John Cross, a livestock farmer and chair of the Bovine TB Partnership, which developed the strategy with more than 100 farmers, vets, scientists and industry and government representatives, said: “This is the best plan for TB freedom we’ve ever had. This is about gamechanging interventions like cattle vaccination. The decline in bovine TB has not been rapid enough and we clearly needed a step change in pace.”

Prof James Wood, of the University of Cambridge, said: “Our studies have demonstrated over 15-fold more transmission occurs between cattle than comes from wildlife – that’s why the focus has to be on cattle.” He said work in Ethiopia showed an 89% efficacy for cattle vaccination, which he also called a gamechanging intervention for England. The licence application for the vaccine has already been submitted.

Government officials have been working on getting the vaccination and Diva test accepted by other nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health by 2030. Dr Ele Brown, a deputy chief veterinary officer at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “It is ambitious but achievable.”