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Active Surveillance
Surveillance Testing Programme
6. The additional measures which apply in the Edge Area are summarised below:
- Surveillance:
- increased test sensitivity by using six monthly or annual testing
- 3km radial testing, around Officially Tuberculosis Free Status Withdrawn (OTFW) breakdowns in annual testing regions of the Edge Area
- Management of new breakdowns to increased test sensitivity:
- Officially Tuberculosis Free Status Suspended (OTFS) breakdowns to clear two short interval tests (SITs) at severe interpretation before restrictions can be lifted
- Compulsory parallel g-IFN tests in OTFW breakdowns
- Detailed epidemiological investigation and analysis
- Preventative measures:
- removal of Cattle Tracing System links between High Risk and Edge Areas
- promotion of Risk Based Trading
- badger vaccination and biosecurity
- support for vet-farmer meetings and local boards
- TB awareness events
- information sharing - publicising six monthly reports locally
- Periodic Reporting:
- prepare and submit to TB Programme, six monthly epidemiological reports on progress
- information sharing - publicising reports locally
7. The Approach to Setting Routine Surveillance TB Testing Intervals in England (TR277) provide more information.
Surveillance Strategy
1. Each country within GB administer a targeted surveillance strategy using agreed testing protocols appropriate to the prevailing disease situation.
2. A variety of different tuberculin test types are used to deploy the surveillance strategy on herds and individual animals. The tuberculin test types and VetNet codes table (TR15(E/S/W)) sets out:
- all the possible types of tuberculin test
- the corresponding Sam purpose/VetNet code
- the reason and circumstances in which each purpose should be used
- the classes of stock to be tested at each test type
- whether zero tolerance applies
- whether an automated Test Notification Letter (TNL) is generated.