Livestock disease eradication - Evaluation of the cooperative state-federal bovine tu

المصدر: Livestock disease eradication - Evaluation of the cooperative state-federal bovine tu
في منتدى : كلية الطب البيطري

by
Committee on Bovine Tuberculosis, Board on Agriculture, National Research Council

ISBN-10: 0309573548
ISBN-13: 9780309573542
Year: 1994

Executive Summary
Tuberculosis, a disease caused by infection by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium bovis, or
Mycobacterium avium, is contagious in humans and other mammals as well as in birds. The focus of this report,
Mycobacterium bovis, causes disease primarily in cattle but also in other mammals, including humans. Because
bovine tuberculosis poses a potent threat to animal and human health, its eradication has been sought in the
United States since 1917. Transmission of the disease from infected animals to the general human population
was effectively halted with the pasteurization of raw milk in the first quarter of the century. By 1985, federal and
state government campaigns had dramatically reduced the population of cattle exposed to--and so possibly
infected by--bovine tuberculosis from 5 percent of the nation's cattle to fewer than 0.03 percent. However, as the
disease has persisted in livestock, it reduces productivity and presents a health threat to animal industry workers.

In the mid 1980s, eradication efforts appeared stymied even as new disease threats appeared. The
persistence of infection in large dairy herds in the southwest, the apparent rise in the number of infected Mexican
cattle imported into the United States, and the appearance of infected bison, elk, and deer in the rapidly growing
captive herds all contributed to the enhanced potential for spread of bovine tuberculosis. As a consequence, both
the feasibility of attaining the goal of eradication and the effectiveness of the cooperative state-federal
eradication strategy were called into question. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requested that the National Research Council (NRC) evaluate the
prospects for eradication and the appropriateness of the existing strategy.

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