The UK government has announced a major step forward in the fight against TB by backing an ambitious strategy to wipe out the disease from England by 2038.

The long-term plan, formally adopted today (Thursday, November 5), includes new vaccine development for cattle and badgers, mandatory blood testing, enhanced wildlife surveillance and greater testing options.

According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) the number of new TB herd breakdowns in England is down by a fifth in 2026 compared to the previous 12 months.

This is the first year in more than a decade that no badgers have been culled due to TB.

The new Bovine TB control strategy for England, which was first published in June, will now be formally taken forward by the UK government.

However Baroness Hayman of Ullock, Minister for Biosecurity and Trade, also warned that "there are no quick fixes to bovine TB".

The strategy sets out five priorities to get ahead of TB including:

Cutting cattle-to-cattle transmission;
Making better use of TB data and evidence;
Preventing infection through innovation and new tools;
Putting farmers and vets in the driving seat locally:
Reducing disease risk from the wider environment.

TB

According to Defra work is already underway on several key measures set out in the strategy particularly in relation to cattle vaccination.

The government has said it is committed to continuing the development of a deployable TB cattle vaccine alongside a new skin test to detect infected animals from vaccinated animals, (DIVA), with an ambition to deploy cattle vaccination by 2030.

There will also be improved TB testing with the government expanding mandatory blood testing and piloting additional privately funded testing to help detect infection. 

According to Defra there will be a separate roll out of badger vaccination in key priority areas through a new Badger Vaccination Field Force. 

This is in addition to a new UK government-funded scheme to collect and test dead badgers to improve understanding of the disease.