Biosecurity - South West Wales Intensive Treatment Area
Lead Researchers: Dr Gareth Enticott, Dr Alex Franklin,
Dr Adrian Morley
Background
In December 2006, the Welsh Assembly Government established the biosecurity Intensive Treatment Area (ITA) across an area of approximately 100 sq. km. with high incidence of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in cattle on the Carmarthenshire/Pembrokeshire border in West Wales.
The overall aim of the ITA was to raise awareness, understanding and ultimately, uptake of biosecurity on farms. The expectation was that any improvement of on-farm biosecurity would in turn help to reduce outbreaks of bovine TB. Testing the effectiveness of particular forms of biosecurity was not an explicit aim of the project.
The ITA ran for 15 months. Local vets were involved in the project, along with the Assembly Government and the Royal Veterinary College, and helped to design a biosecurity scoring tool. One hundred and seven cattle farms in the ITA volunteered to take part. Of these, 86 were eligible and received two risk biosecurity risk assessment visits. The ITA vets assessed the level of biosecurity on farms within the ITA that had volunteered to participate. Vets paid at least two visits to the participating farms. At the first, levels of biosecurity were measured and a series of recommended actions were provided to farmers. At the second visit, a new measurement of biosecurity was recorded and recommendations updated.
The ITA trial was independently monitored and evaluated jointly by BRASS, Cardiff University, and ADAS. The remainder of these web-project pages and linked outputs provide further information on the BRASS components of the research. For information on the ADAS strand of the research please contact the ADAS research team directly www.adas.co.uk .
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