A large-scale vaccination programme could help eradicate bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in badgers, according to a first-of-its-kind study with “really promising” results for cattle farmers, whose herds have been devastated by the disease.
Over four years, researchers vaccinated 265 badgers across 12 farms in Cornwall. They found the percentage of badgers testing positive for bTB fell from 16% to zero.
“It’s the best result you could get from a small study,” said the lead researcher, Prof Rosie Woodroffe, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). “The results are really promising but we’d want to see it replicated over a larger area.”
It was always common sense, but farmers don’t like it because it’s more expensive and time consuming than just culling them.