10 Nov 2022
Scientists believe the cross-border project could help policymakers in Belfast and Dublin in their efforts to eradicate the disease.
Allister Webb
Job Title
Image © Sina Ettmer / Adobe Stock
A new partnership that aims to expand knowledge of the immunology of bTB in herds experiencing repeat infections across Ireland has been launched.
Officials said it is the first time universities and government institutions have sought to address the issue on an all-island basis, and believe it could influence policy on both sides of the border.
Academics from Queen’s University Belfast’s Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS) and University College Dublin (UCD) will explore the role that vitamin D levels might play in animals’ immune response to bTB.
Estimates suggest that herds infected with the disease have as much as a 40% chance of a recurrence within three years and the study is seeking to examine how vitamin D concentrations influence immune response and disease outcome on those farms.
It is hoped that will help to identify host factors contributing to the risk of relapse in specific breeds or herds, and help to inform eradication strategies on both sides of the border.
Kieran Meade, associate professor at UCD’s School of Agriculture and Food Science, said: “Multiple studies now point to an animal-specific issue that prevents current diagnostic tests from identifying all truly infected cattle, and these cattle act as a reservoir of persistent infection.
“The weight of evidence from the human literature and our exciting preliminary data suggests that vitamin D status will have a decisive impact on livestock immunity to diseases including TB.”
Ilias Kyriazakis, of the IGFS, added: “Queen’s has previously associated vitamin D status of livestock with their immune response to a variety of pathogens and this exciting collaboration offers us the opportunity to build on our previous research.”
The study, which is thought to be the first of its kind examining herds experiencing repeated bTB infections, is being funded by the Irish government under the Shared Island programme, which aims to build cross-border partnerships on key strategic issues.
The two institutions are also working with Northern Ireland’s Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI).
Tom Ford, of AFBI, said: “This project provides an exciting opportunity to further understand baseline cattle immune system function, how it responds to the bacterium that causes bovine tuberculosis and if vitamin D influences immunological outcomes – from disease resilience to diagnostics.”
