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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the impact of the level of funding to laboratories for the examination of bovine samples for M. bovis on the time scale for the testing of samples. [142338] Mr. Bradshaw: Culture of samples for Mycobacterium bovis (the causative organism for bovine tuberculosis) takes at least six weeks. A backlog of samples built up at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) after the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001. An extra £650,000 funding was made available in 2003-04 to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) to tackle the backlog. So far in 2003, the monthly throughput at VLA of bovine samples for culture has been more than three times higher than in 2002. Fresh samples are now being processed as they arrive at VLA and we are further reducing the backlog of frozen samples. At the end of October 2003 there were 1,781 tissue samples awaiting culture at the VLA (down from 6,329 at the end of March 2003). Nearly all of the outstanding samples (1,712) are from carcases that showed no visible lesions at post-mortem, and thus not causing a delay in lifting movement restrictions from farms.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

142338; 415 c541W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Finance Diseases Disease control Livestock Testing Bovine tuberculosis Laboratories

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk