Herd incidence of TB increasing while clinical cases drop

'If we were to look at the 12-month period going back to last April 2023, we’ve had about 30,000 reactors. That’s 6,000 up.'

Clinical cases of bovine TB have become less frequent, said superintending veterinary inspector David Quinn, in a recent Teagasc podcast. He explained why no lesions are detected in many reactors at factories.

Cases are detected at an earlier stage of infection. “Because of that, you tend not to see lesions in a lot of the animals. About 30% of the animals that go into the factory, 30% of the reactors, will be lesioned. That’s not to say that the other 70% are not infected, it’s just that the lesions are microscopic, so you can’t see them with the naked eye.