The case for TB testing review: PR perspective

Whilst so much of the world's attention has been on the crisis in Afghanistan, and rightly so. However, the national case of Geronimo, the alpaca, has continued.

The Story so Far

With the high court denying Helen's appeal for further testing, the case will likely result in the animal's death. When writing this, Geronimo is in the custody of the police and DEFRA awaiting his fate. Following this, a post mortem investigation will then be conducted. Helen is likely to do her independent tests. While many campaigners hope this can still be avoided if the situation cannot change, the results must be clear. DEFRAs vet will take biopsy's of the tissue and various cultures to assess the Geronimos health. This test needs to be done independently as well. Now Geronimo does not have any clinical signs of TB, which are weight loss and respiratory problems. Now visually, TB is challenging to diagnose, which is why a robust testing program is necessary.

The Impact on Testing

With a test for bovine TB essential for keeping cases down and alpaca ownership continuing to rise as more people take to various models of adding these animals onto a farm, testing is crucial. Now with the testing protocols being brought into question at present because of the case of Geronimo, the issue that is likely to happen is one where the voluntary test is proving highly inaccurate when an alternative is available. It will increase owner scrutiny. With the trial being voluntary once owners investigate the testing protocols in greater detail, owners will likely increase scrutiny, which is positive. However, as the trial is mainly voluntary at this point, the reduced confidence in the study would reduce not only the scope but further question its validity, increasing its overall cost and likely incentives offered to ensure necessary subjects are available.

Rounded Testing Regimes

The other element that needs to be considered is, does the current protocol use all of the available science to identify TB accurately. If we add this third test, there is no feasible alternative other than post mortem for further testing. Although we may still see some errors with the three tests, the additional test would increase validity and owner confidence. The likelihood of an animal failing a test due to a false positive across consecutive sampling is extremely unlikely, especially when the test has different approaches and methodologies will reduce the likelihood of farmers and owners going through lengthy appeal processes. 

A further focus

This additional phage test then opens doors further for testing once a valid treatment is available and brings into question the testing of cattle. An additional piece will focus on testing regimes in cattle and current issues or concerns to follow this article up. So what can we do whilst we desperately wait and want this case to end in a positive outcome? We also need to ensure that the focus and scrutiny does not move off of Bovine TB testing. A further change in testing is needed so that those with animals and livestock are not in the situation where the organisations do not fully utilise all the tools there to protect them.