Two disease infection centres

Ministry officials believe there are two infection centres for the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis in Southland and South Canterbury.

A Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) spokeswoman said there appeared to be two centres of infection in Southland and South Canterbury/North Otago with links through animal movement.

However, it was too early to say where the infection originated, the spokeswoman said.

‘‘Our ongoing trace-and-test work along with the DNA analysis will greatly assist with this.

‘‘The results of DNA analysis are still some months away - hence, it is also too early to say how long the disease has been in the country.’’

Previously, the 23 farms confirmed with M. bovis were being traced back to the van Leeuwen group of farms in South Canterbury, where the disease was detected for the first time in New

The results of DNA analysis are still some months away - hence, it is also too early to say how long the disease has been in the country

MPI spokeswoman

Zealand in July last year.

On top of the properties confirmed to be infected, 38 farms are restricted and 1500 are considered ‘trace’ properties.

Meanwhile, Winton-based veterinarian centre VetSouth is urging anyone with properties or stock that may be linked to the infected property Southern Centre Dairies to come forward.

Southern Centre Dairies, the centre of infected properties in Southland, is owned by Gea and Alfons Zeestraten.

VetSouth director Mark Bryan said the presentation of M. bovis in South Canterbury and Southland had been different, with milking cows and dry cows affected in Canterbury.

In Southland the clinical disease had been seen in calves, but not in milking cows, he said.

‘‘We’re assuming the calves are being infected in the milk,’’ he said.

While MPI is unable to say how long the disease had been in the country, there are animals born in 2016 that are infected with the disease.

Bryan said they could not pinpoint when the disease came into the country and the infection could have been here since 2016. It seemed the animals had been infected as calves.

MPI has been tracking down farms which could have links to Southern Centre Dairies.

However, Bryan said there were people out there with lifestyle blocks and small numbers of calves which could have slipped through the cracks.

The first round of the joint industry MPI surveillance programme is near completion with no positive detections.

Tests have been completed on tanker milk from 9100 dairy farms without a positive detection.

‘‘That tells us that the infection hasn’t gotten into the national milking herd,’’ Bryan said.

The test results seemed to confirm younger non-milking animals, including rising one and two-yearolds, were most likely to be carrying the disease, he said.

This meant there was a better chance to stop the disease in its tracks, he said.

Bryan wanted to track where waste milk off the Zeestraten farm had been used.

‘‘We know that if we can track that we can track the calves at risk.’’

Bryan continues to be positive about the chances of eradicating the disease from the country.

Everyone needed to work together to ensure it could be done, he said.

‘‘I think we’re moving beyond the ‘how did it get here?’’’