Roadmap for development of disease control strategies for bTB

What are we trying to achieve and why? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

Role of environmental and ecological variables in pathogen transmission patterns.

What are the scientific and technological challenges (knowledge gaps needing to be addressed)?

• Establishing if manure and fomites are a risk.
• Investigate whether viable M. bovis detectable in the farmed environment; investigate whether a transmission risk to cattle and/or wildlife.
• Challenging to undertake and interpret environmental sampling tests and studies.
  Importance of wildlife reservoirs; direct and/or indirect transmission?

What approaches could/should be taken to address the research question?

• Investigate whether (culture, molecular, genomic tests) M. bovis survives in manure, slurry, dust, and other samples from the farmed environment.
• Identification of farm/environment risk factors by VRAMP on affected farms.
• Identify matched case-control study farms.
• Include parameter estimates in disease modelling.

What else needs to be done before we can solve this need?

• Understand performance characteristics of tests deployed.
• Data transparency across regions.
• Data collection harmonization so that there is consistency.
• Shared data and protocols across countries.
• Monitor wildlife at strategic points.

Existing knowledge including successes and failures