DEVELOPMENTS IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF TUBERCULOSIS

Because of the lower prevalence of clinical Gases of tuberculosis in c attle today, eradication of Mycobacterium bovis infection requires to be approached on a different basis to that adopted in the past, When h erds are subjected to the tuberculin test on an annual basis, the majo rity of cattle identified as reactors are likely to have acquired such infection recently and, because of this, the use of other tests based on cytokine activity may be valuable in identifying other recently-in fected cattle, The use of interferon-g assay, and other tests, on bloo ds from cattle in restricted herds, in combination with the tuberculin test, may offer a means of identifying additional infected cattle, th us reducing the extent of exposure for the herd and, thereby, shorteni ng the period of restriction.