Written question asked by Andrew George (Liberal Democrat) on Thursday, 6 May 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 20 May 2004. It was answered by Ben Bradshaw (Labour) on Thursday, 20 May 2004 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the maximum (a) specificity and (b) sensitivity achieved by the Bovigam gammas interferon test in experiments conducted in the UK is; and under what conditions these results were achieved.

Answer: Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the maximum (a) specificity and (b) sensitivity achieved by the Bovigam gammas interferon test in experiments conducted in the UK is; and under what conditions these results were achieved. [172553] Mr. Bradshaw: Specificity and sensitivity must be quoted together as they are inversely related, and they suffer from the lack of an absolute measure of whether an animal is infected. In the UK, the gamma interferon (g-IFN) test has been used without the skin test only in laboratory studies. No large-scale validation of the g-IFN test has been carried out in GB. The ongoing field trial sponsored by Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government in Wales and the Midlands aims to measure the cost effectiveness of using the g-IFN in infected herds in conjunction with the single intradermal comparative cervical test (SICCT) and provide some data on the g-IFN test sensitivity under GB conditions. There are also plans in train to assess the specificity of the g-IFN test in areas of GB with little or no incidence of TB.

Secondary information