The vaccine, dubbed MSX-1, was engineered by the university’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) with proteins found in bovine TB-producing bacteria.

VIDO’s most recent round of MSX-1 studies in mice proved successful, with the vaccine reducing disease bacteria in their lungs and spleens. It also minimized weight loss and overall lethality caused by bovine TB.

WHY IT MATTERS: Bovine tuberculosis is a reportable disease of cattle that often prompts herd depopulation when found on dairy and beef operations.

The diagnostic advantage

The initial proof-of-concept trial saw the VIDO team testing two vaccines: MSX-1 and Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG), a long-used treatment for managing tuberculosis in humans.

Both vaccines helped mitigate the bacterial infection in lab mice, but their respective strengths were different.

Although 100 per cent of the mice exposed to BCG survived, the vaccine continued to exhibit the same trait that has kept it from becoming a feasible bovine TB treatment for livestock. BCG interferes with the tuberculin skin test that allows the disease to be detected, creating false positives.

Meanwhile, MSX-1 protected 80 per cent of the mice from a highly virulent bovine TB sample but did not compromise the accuracy of the tuberculin test.

“The BCG vaccine is not compatible with the diagnostic tests for bovine TB in livestock, in the sense that if you vaccinate cattle with BCG down the road, if they do get infected, you will not be able to distinguish between whether they were vaccinated or they’ve actually gotten infected with the disease-causing bacteria,” said Jeffrey Chen, VIDO’s principal investigator on the project, shortly after the study’s publication.

Part of the project involved assessing a highly virulent laboratory strain of bovine TB used in a previous study where mice were also used as subjects. Although MSX-1 wasn’t 100 per cent effective against the strain — which was much more virulent than the strains found on cattle operations — it proved successful enough to warrant testing in live cattle.

That conclusion was based on the low likelihood of the vaccine encountering comparatively strong bovine TB strains in a farm environment. Because MSX-1 had an 80 per cent success rate against the lab strain, the investigators decided it should have no problems tackling the milder forms of bovine TB found in the cattle barn.

Moving to cattle

The next step, says Chen, is to isolate the common strains of bovine TB and test the vaccine against them in cattle.

“If we are successful, I’m proud to say that this will be a homegrown first in Canada: a Canadian-made bovine TB vaccine,” he says.

“There is no licensed bovine TB vaccine, per se, that is already available. So if we are successful at gaining regulatory approval and finding a commercial partner to license to develop into a commercial vaccine, we will be the first in the world to actually get something like that to the market.”

“It will be an incredibly proud day for Saskatchewan and for Canada, of course, and it will be the highlight of my research career.”

Prairie detections and producer impact

There has been a slow but steady series of detections of bovine TB in herds across the Prairies since 2023, with incidents in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Because herd depopulation is Canadian Food Inspection Agency protocol in the event of a bovine TB discovery, producer compensation has become a hot-button issue. In response, the federal government recently extended a tax deferral period for livestock producers affected by bovine tuberculosis in 2024 and 2025.

Safety and the road to market

Now that the VIDO team knows MSX-1 works, the next step is figuring out why it works — for the sake of both efficacy and regulatory approval. This will necessitate a parallel study concurrent with the cattle trials, says Chen.

That study will involve working from the immune system out to untangle the mechanism by which MSX-1 protects the host animal.

“We have to define its safety because in the vaccine business, there are two very important things that one needs to meet: efficacy, showing that it will work. And two, that it’s absolutely safe. This is paramount, considering that we’re going to be vaccinating animals that will enter the food chain,” he said.

On the production side, the researchers need to prove the vaccine doesn’t affect animal growth.

“If it’s beef cattle, (they have) to put on the weight that our normal, healthy animal would. It would not have any adverse effects.”

So how long will producers have to wait before a vaccine is available if the cattle trial is successful?

Chen’s most optimistic — although admittedly unlikely — timeline is three years. A more realistic scenario would be five to 10 years, depending largely on how long it takes to receive regulatory approval from the CFIA.

People sometimes get the wrong impression about how long it takes for a vaccine to come to market based on the quick turnover involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, says Chen.

However, that involved the co-operation of scientists from all over the world working night and day for several months. The search for a bovine TB solution lacks that same urgency.

“This is slightly different in that this is bovine TB, a disease that’s been there for a while now. There are already programs in place to control it but not necessarily eliminate it.”

However, there is a possibility of doing just that, he says.

“I would argue that a vaccine for bovine TB has the potential to actually lead to its elimination.”

Funding the next phase

With around $500,000 in funding from Saskatchewan Agriculture, the cattle research component is covered financially, notes Chen. However, the added expense of performing the mechanism testing will require extra.

The VIDO team is already reaching out to a range of agriculture interests to promote the value of investing in the program. Chen is optimistic on this point, acknowledging the support they received from the Beef Cattle Research Council for the project’s proof-of-concept component.

“We are grateful for that initial kick-start, so to speak. They took a big chance. They took a big risk. They had the confidence in our concept and actually allowed us to generate that proof of principle data that now allows us to leverage that and get more funding to actually test cattle.”

The post Researchers advance first-of-its-kind bovine TB vaccine to trials appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

On March 27, federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald announced that the government will propose amendments to the Income Tax Act to extend the income tax deferral period for livestock producers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Eligible producers received compensation for their animals to be destroyed due to bovine tuberculosis in 2024 and 2025.

This action is a response to concerns from livestock producers about the challenges of replenishing their herds during the same tax year that they received compensation.

Under the Health of Animals Act, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency provided compensation to livestock producers whose animals were destroyed in 2024 and 2025 due to the bovine TB outbreak.

A section of the Income Tax Act allows for only a one-year deferral, but the proposed amendments will allow livestock producers to defer compensation for a prescribed schedule from 2026 to 2030, enabling them to have greater flexibility to manage their incomes and sustain their operations as they rebuild their herds.

Producers who received amounts as compensation in 2025 or 2026 under the Health of Animals Act because they had to destroy their animals due to tuberculosis outbreaks will have the option of including those amounts in income for tax purposes as follows:

• Up to 100 per cent of the compensation deferred to the 2027 tax year, with at least 83 per cent included in income in 2027.
• Up to 17 per cent of the compensation deferred to the 2028 tax year, with at least nine per cent included in income in 2028.
• Up to eight per cent of the compensation deferred to the 2029 tax year, with at least four per cent included in income in 2029.
• Up to four per cent of the compensation deferred to the 2030 tax year, with the remaining four per cent included in income in 2030.

The post Producers affected by bovine TB receive extended tax deferral appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The medical science is pretty clear on the consumption of unpasteurized milk: it can carry salmonella, e.coli, listeria and a host of other illnesses, including bovine tuberculosis.

WHY IT MATTERS: Drinking raw milk comes with numerous risks, but proponents of a proposed amendment to Alberta’s Food and Drug Act say legalizing its sale could be a boon for small farms in the province.

One of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) first recommendations when a mutated strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza started circulating among United States dairy herds in 2024 was to only drink pasteurized milk and cook meat thoroughly.

However, some people hold a different view. Just ask the two-thirds of Alberta towns and counties that voted in favour of a resolution made to the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) to allow the sale of raw milk under certain conditions. Currently, selling raw milk in the province is illegal and those who break the law risk fines of up to $25,000.

The resolution resulted in the RMA sending a proposed amendment to the Province of Alberta’s Food and Drug Act.

Ryan Ratzlaff, the reeve Municipal District of Greenview, which spearheaded the RMA resolution, doesn’t deny there are health risks involved in drinking raw milk. However, Ratzlaff believes they can be mitigated through education and the application of new research.

Much of that scientific research is advocated by the U.S.-based Raw Milk Institute, which posits that unpasteurized milk has a significant nutritional advantage over its pasteurized counterpart and can play a role in fighting asthma, allergies, eczema and lactose intolerance among other ailments.

“After the resolution became public, I had residents thanking me for bringing it forward because they’ve got family members that were lactose intolerant, that when they found somebody that they could get raw milk from they can drink as much as they want,” said Ratzlaff.

And based on the demand for raw milk on the black market, he said the allowance of raw milk sales will be a valuable new rail for small farms in his M.D. seeking sustainability for their operations.

“I’m looking at it more for my neighbour down the street who has a couple cows that they’re milking,” he said.

“It’s more of a community thing where we can actually build back our small farms in our small communities, because right now we’re losing a lot of that because the next generation is going, ‘Well, I don’t want to be a massive farm, and I can’t make ends meet.’

“But I think a lot of the small farms that we grew up on had all these different things, and we worked with our neighbours and sold to our neighbours and bought from our neighbours, and that’s what sustained a lot of people.”

Ratzlaff believes cattle disease started in earnest as milk became less community-oriented and became a larger-scale model, with “massive” barns enabling more disease risk. By comparison, he explained, today’s black-market raw milk operations are small with limited means of virus transmission.

“Some of these smaller farms where they only got a couple of cows … it’s easier to keep a handle on and things like that. It’s not the same level of risk.”

Knowledge of the risks through education will also help minimize bad experiences with raw milk, he said. Legalizing the practice would also give the provincial government the motivation to develop standards for the milk with an eye toward safety.

Bovine bird flu danger

That said, a big question is how a legalized raw milk market in Alberta would co-exist with the advent of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in dairy cows. Since 2024, 1,084 dairy herds in 19 U.S. states have tested positive for bird flu, which is attracted to dairy cows’ mammary glands.

The most recent discovery occurred in December in Wisconsin. No incidents of this “bovine bird flu” have been found in Canada to date.

But with diseases like bovine HPAI and tuberculosis having the potential to infect humans drinking raw milk, an avian flu tracker and professor with the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph said it’s simply not worth the risk.

“Generally speaking, as a veterinarian, as someone who has actually worked with dairy cows, I wouldn’t recommend drinking raw milk, not just because of HPAI, but because of a whole host of other things that might be lurking in raw milk,” said Shayan Sharif.

“It’s not something that I would recommend to anyone, but I recognize that some people really think that it has some medicinal activities and perhaps it’s healthier to drink raw milk, and that’s their opinion.

“But I think from the point of view of microbiology, of what can be harboured in raw milk, I would not really recommend that to anyone.”

As cases piled up in the U.S. bovine avian flu outbreak, agencies under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) identified risk factors, some of which pointed to infection through raw milk.

To name one example, they learned it could be spread from cow to cow through milking machines and other dairy barn equipment.

Transmission from cows to humans through barn milk exposure was also determined to be a low-level possibility. One such example occurred in Texas shortly after the initial HPAI discovery there.

“It … became clear that humans that are in contact with the virus usually catch the virus through their conjunctiva,” explained Sharif.

“Some of them become infected through the respiratory system, but it’s primarily because of the conjunctiva in in their eyes that they become infected.

“So if you have PPE (personal protective equipment) — for example goggles, gloves, coveralls and so on — you could actually protect yourself.”

The recent discovery of HPAI in a Netherlands dairy herd suggests bovine bird flu is not an exclusively U.S. phenomenon.

According to a Jan. 23 report in science.org, a cat on a dairy farm in the Dutch province of Friesland that died from H5N1 HPAI proved to be a canary in a coal mine.

Veterinarians sampled blood and milk from cattle on the farm. Although they did not find the virus itself, they found antibodies in the milk of one cow suggesting it had contracted the flu recently.

The case is consistent with warnings from North American vets and scientists that bovine bird flu is still a going concern requiring ongoing precautions and research.

A calculated risk?

In spite of the risks of bovine HPAI, bovine tuberculosis and sundry other communicables being spread through raw milk, Ratzlaff considers drinking it a calculated risk, one that can be made safer through education.

“Not to be flippant about it, but everything we do has risk. Look at the highways that we’ve had this winter. There’s risk in everything we do and we need to be educated to take appropriate measures to mitigate those risks.”

The post Rural municipalities push legalization of raw milk onto provincial agenda appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Sometimes there are new products that have a definite place in cattle production, or we find easier ways to do things.

Products are changed due to developing resistance or the need for alternatives.

It’s a global market, and Canada can occasionally find itself on the outside looking in.

Regulatory changes can make our lives more complicated as more paperwork is introduced, and sometimes the speed of commerce slows down.

In this column, I am going to provide a variety of tips that can work on western Canadian cow-calf operations, both commercial and purebred.

Stomach ulcers are blamed on a number of factors, but research by Dr. Murray Jelinski has found they always happen in the transition from milk to grass consumption at around six weeks, resulting on one per cent death loss.

Some producers are creeping calves with very soft palatable grass hay and access to their own minerals to decrease incidence.

Clostridial vaccination is a possible prevention method, but whether it is or isn’t, the vaccine is a core one for young calves.

Speaking of clostridial vaccination, a new broader spectrum product has just come on the market.

It is called Covexin 10 but includes clostridium perfringens A.

This is pretty rare in beef cattle and is seen more in mature dairy cows, but I did talk to a purebred producer who had it diagnosed in younger calves that were dying.

Discuss it with your herd veterinarian because like all vaccines that have tetanus, it does not include histophilus somnus.

Vaccination success

The latest information released by the Beef Canada Research Council is worth looking at.

It’s a review of proper vaccinating techniques, which is always nice to have, not only for new employees or producers but also for those who have been in the business for a long time because over time, we can develop bad habits.

Producers pay good money for vaccines, so it’s important to look after them and take a little more time and thought to administer them properly.

Vaccination is still a huge part of producers’ biosecurity program, so keep abreast of new developments.

The BCRC put out information on core vaccines necessary in the cattle industry, and I would say pretty much all veterinarians would agree with 80 to 90 per cent of it.

Histophilus somnus should be considered a core vaccine because it is added to a lot of clostridial vaccines, and I remember when we saw the brainers and heart forms of it in our calves, especially in feedlots post weaning.

If we do see it now, it’s because there is a lack of a booster shot at the proper time.

Industry learning

We sometimes need to pat ourselves on the back for how far the industry has come in the last two to three decades, from much less navel infection and joint issues in young calves by improving colostral consumption and hygiene to far fewer calving issues because of proper selection for birth weight and body type in our herd sires.

Almost no dehorning is necessary now due to polled genetics, and cancer eye has a super low incidence because of dark pigment in almost all the breeds. Even Charolais animals have a darker pigment, resulting in a super low incidence.

We used to perform a lot of surgeries for this condition at our clinic because of the complete white faces, and now they are a rarity.

We now try not to over-treat lameness because we know that NSAIDs, in a lot of cases, are a better choice. In bad cases, we can get a diagnosis before treatment.

Each case is different and may simply require convalescence, trimming, surgery or, if something is incurable, shipping.

I used to do a lot of claw amputations. They are easy to recognize and worth doing, depending on the value of the animal and stage of pregnancy. It might even make sense in feeder animals.

The success rate is very high.

Some feedlots have trimming tilt tables because they have recognized the recovery success rate and the growth potential, not to mention the animal welfare implications.

If this service is required, look for clinics that will do them.

The procedure is preferably done on a tilt table, but occasionally they can be done in a squeeze chute with good access, depending on which claw is involved.

Your veterinarian will tell you their comfort level.

Record high cattle prices are helping speed up the decision to ship or treat as producers weigh the prognosis for success based on past experience.

Both producers and veterinarians are more engaged now on the animal welfare side of livestock production.

Again, treating often involves NSAIDs.

A multitude of options are on the market, and veterinarians have their preferences as to which ones they want to use in each situation.

Any NSAID is likely better than no NSAID in almost all situations, but producers must pay attention to withdrawal times.

We are fortunate in Canada that in most places, winter frosts and frozen yards and fields prevent transmission of lots of problems, eliminating the need for year-round treatment for internal and external parasites.

This slows the development of resistance.

We still need to be cognizant of this and not over-treat.

As well, treat for flies only when they reach the economic threshold. One life cycle in the summer may likely do it for most climates.

Major cattle diseases

Foot-and-mouth disease and bovine tuberculosis have received a lot of attention lately because of recent outbreaks.

Prevention needs to focus on border security, and our cattle organizations need to continually lobby the federal government on this.

I have great faith in our canine friends and the work they do, not only in drug detection but all citrus fruit, plants and meat. They are specialists and get lots done.

I am not a trained epidemiologist, but it appears that a new strain of bovine TB has been found in these last few outbreaks that hadn’t been detected before and aren’t found in surrounding herds, trace-outs, trace-ins or wildlife.

Where is it coming from?

We have one of the best surveillance systems in place during slaughter, which is how we find these cases in the first place.

I also realize the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s handling of reportable diseases is always under scrutiny from our trading partners.

Equipment and the beef farm

My last couple of points involve equipment.

When buying applicator guns, look for ones that can be used on different products.

Clean them out and maintain them like you do your vaccine guns. All things will wear out, so parts should be replaced often.

For those just starting out in the cattle business, chutes, alley systems, maternity pens and calf chutes are available at auction.

Any squeeze chute or maternity pen is better than nothing because they will help you treat your animals appropriately and on time.

Some may need a bit of repair, but I see chutes that are 50 years old or older that are still functioning well if maintained.

This will make your life easier as well as maximizing animal welfare and minimizing injuries when handling.

Equipment can be upgraded as your herd grows, and herds larger than 200 head warrant a hydraulic chute. Expanding producers will seldom sell older chutes because they will be moved to a pasture to be be used out there.

I hope that at least a couple of these points will resonate with you.

As well, if you ever feel a health area should be covered in these columns, plant the seed with one of the veterinary writers. Your idea or question will likely help others.

The post Hot tips for cow-calf beef farmers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A team with the university’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) recently tested two vaccines — the established Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG) and a newcomer on the block, MSX-1, which they hoped would provide protection without triggering the false test positives that have been so problematic for livestock vaccination in the past. With further research, they found, the latter may have potential as a vaccine for the deadly cattle disease.

The investigation found both vaccines helped mitigate the bacterial infection in lab mice in different ways.

All of the mice vaccinated with BCG — which has long been a vaccine for TB in humans and some wildlife — survived exposure to the TB-causing bacteria Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis), while only 80 per cent of those vaccinated with MSX-1 remained after being infected.

That meant MSX-1 was not as strong as BCG in terms of total protection. A big pro, however, was that MSX-1 did not, in fact, interfere with the accuracy of the standard tuberculin skin test, as BCG tends to do.

The false positives from the BCG vaccine have kept it from being a feasible vaccination option for livestock, risking interference with Canada’s monitoring and, in the case of a positive result, strict control efforts against the disease.

“The BCG vaccine is not compatible with the diagnostic tests for bovine TB in livestock, in the sense that if you vaccinate cattle with BCG down the road if they do get infected, you will not be able to distinguish between whether they were vaccinated or they’ve actually gotten infected with the disease-causing bacteria,” said the project’s principal investigator, Jeffrey Chen.

Cull reduction a primary goal

The project was recently highlighted by the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC), which was a key funder of the project. A post on their website expressed optimism over the findings and the role they may play in minimizing cattle culls.

“This means that there could be a vaccine with the potential to be approved to protect Canadian cattle herds from tuberculosis while still allowing the ability to test, which could mean culling only infected animals rather than the whole herd, meaning cost savings for cattle producers, the beef industry and the government,” the BCRC said.

“There are also implications to further vaccinate wildlife, other livestock and humans with this development. Further research into dosage and length of protection will help to improve the efficacy of the MSX-1 vaccine and potential approval of use.”

Advantage: MSX-1

Bovine tuberculosis is a reportable disease under the federal Health of Animals Act. It’s a zoonotic disease that can affect a wide range of mammals including livestock, wildlife and humans.

“For the beef cattle and dairy cattle sectors in Canada, it can be devastating in the sense that it can essentially block trade,” Chen noted.

Chen’s project started in 2018, including “piecemeal” experiments during the COVID-19 pandemic years.

The project to date has focused primarily on the 104-year-old BCG and MSX-1 vaccines.

“(BCG) jolts the immune system so that when an immunized individual encounters an actual infection with the bacteria that actually causes the disease, (the) immune system is essentially given a boost. It recognizes it and it’s able to fight off the infection much more efficiently,” Chen explained.

But because of the aforementioned false positives to skin tests , BCG isn’t permitted for livestock. This reaction does not occur in humans.

“For humans, there is a diagnostic test that was developed to allow you to differentiate between individuals who are vaccinated from those who get the disease, but there isn’t a similar test for livestock,” Chen said.

Meanwhile, according to the BCRC, MSX-1 is based on “a very different and harmless mycobacteria” called M. smegmatis that could be used to provide protection against bovine TB without interfering with the tuberculin test or causing negative side effects.

“I think that sort of gives … MSX-1 an advantage in that sense,” said Chen.

TB resurgence

Bovine TB has had an unfortunate return to the Prairies in recent years.

In 2023, cases in a Saskatchewan herd became Canada’s first since 2018. Another herd was locked down in Saskatchewan in 2024 and, most recently, a dairy cow in Manitoba’s Pembina Valley region tested positive — the first such finding in the province in over a decade.

As of Sept. 11, those cases had returned 59 positive TB tests so far, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Testing is still ongoing.

“As of today, testing and culling of infected herds is the only way to manage the disease once it is confirmed,” the BCRC noted.

“While this internationally recognized approach has helped to safeguard Canada’s bTB-free status and our ability to trade internationally, these control measures are very costly to the producers affected as well as the federal government.”

Outlook for a vaccine

There’s still much research to be done before a realistic vaccine is identified, if anything develops at all, said Chen. He makes an admittedly optimistic guess of two to two-and-a-half years before there’s a chance of an effective vaccine.

“We may get some data that said ‘No, this is a no-go.’ So we just have to do the work to find out,” he said.

The project was primarily to obtain proof of principle.

“(It) has to be vetted by the scientific community before we can broadly announce ‘Look — we’re on to something interesting here that we certainly need to look into further,’” said Chen.

Once peer-reviewed, the next stage will involve large-scale studies in cattle.

The durability of MSX-1 will also be a key focus in the next round of research.

“If you vaccinate, let’s say, today, how much protection will MSX-1 provide three months from now or six months from now and a year from now?” Chen said.

Future Johne’s disease applications?

Reynold Bergen, science director for BCRC, described the project as a good use of the national check-off dollars collected from producers by Canada Beef, which disperses funds to the council for research and tech development.

“Since they have to pay it, it’s really, really important that the use we’re putting those dollars to is stuff that will benefit all producers, ideally,” he said.

Bergen hopes the development of bovine TB vaccination tech will also play into a solution to Johne’s disease, a wasting illness of cattle and other ruminants.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Johnes’s is caused by a resistant species of bacteria (mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis) that belongs to the same family as tuberculosis.

“It’s not a reportable disease. There’s no trade implications from it,” said Bergen.

“But it affects a lot (of) producers and has a very real economic impact for them …. The two are related, so the technology that’s used to develop that TB vaccine could also help us to develop an effective vaccine against Johne’s disease, which is a real, clear and present issue for producers.”

Tyler Fulton, president of the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA), praised BCRC’s work in an email.

“CCA appreciates and fully supports BCRC’s focus on and dedication to producer-funded research that directly benefits Canadian beef producers. We are proud that BCRC is one of our divisions, providing unbiased scientific research on subjects that producers have identified as being of importance,” he said.

The post A new vaccine for bovine tuberculosis? Maybe not yet, but a step closer appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Provincial agriculture minister Daryl Harrison said last week he had heard from cattle organizations about the need for more help.

The federal government compensates producers for the loss of their animals, up to maximum amounts set by regulations, but not for cleaning and disinfection of their premises that would allow them to get back in business.

The AgriRecovery framework can be used to help producers with the extraordinary costs of various natural disasters.

Harrison said a formal request had not yet been made to Ottawa, but he is considering it.

Cattle leaders said they hoped that would come soon.

Lost genetic advancement

Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association president Jeff Yorga said the organization supports using the AgriRecovery framework to help producers with cleaning and disinfection but said the issue is bigger than that.

“This doesn’t bring back hundreds of years of genetic advancement, right?” he said after the SSGA annual meeting.

“There’s no way to fix that.”

Yorga said the process surrounding the discovery of bovine TB, depopulation and disinfection takes too long. He said it shouldn’t take months to do this, as it does now.

In the most recent case, near Melville, the positive test was found at the end of November 2024 but the herd wasn’t depopulated until later in the winter.

Saskatchewan Cattle Association chair Chad Ross said the organization has written to the minister asking for more help.

“Minister Harrison knows that these producers are taking some emotional and financial hardships to keep our industry business as usual for the rest of us and so they need support,” he said.

AgriRecovery used in previous TB outbreaks

Ross said the Canadian Cattle Association is also involved at the federal level.

AgriRecovery has been triggered in previous bovine TB outbreaks.

According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, as of June 5 there were 25 cases of bovine TB confirmed in the Saskatchewan herd of origin and the agency has identified higher risk associated herds.

These include seven lifeline herds, or herds traced from the infected animal; three have been released from quarantine.

There are also 32 trace-out herds, or herds that obtained animals from the infected herd. Eight of those have been released from quarantine.

CFIA is still identifying and preparing to test herds that provided animals to the herd of origin, contact herds that shared a fence line or may have commingled with the infected herd, and herds within five kilometres of the infected herd.

At the SSGA annual meeting last week, members passed several resolutions asking for better control of wildlife populations, particularly elk. Many think the disease may have come from wildlife that get into feed meant for cattle.

The resolutions included distributing hunting tags to landowners, allowing landowners outfitting opportunities and allowing open archery seasons.

CFIA has said there is no evidence that the bovine TB was transmitted to cattle from elk. Wildlife testing is done in co-operation with hunters who submit animals for testing, but producers want more rigorous requirements.

The post Saskatchewan considers AgriRecovery request in bovine TB case appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

On June 16, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said they were investigating a bovine tuberculosis infection in a dairy cow, which had come from a farm in the Pembina Valley region of south-central Manitoba.

Why it matters: Canada has had brushes with bovine tuberculosis in recent years, but not in Manitoba.

According to a CFIA notice to industry, samples had been taken from the seven-year-old animal at the abattoir. Labs found the bacteria responsible for bovine tuberculosis June 9, 2025. The finding was later confirmed June 13.

Officials tracked down the originating farm through the DairyTrace traceability program. The CFIA says the herd has been quarantined, pending further testing and depopulation.

“The timing of testing will be determined after discussions with the producer to manage the operational impact of the process,” the agency said.

“The CFIA is continuing to work closely with producers, industry associations, and provincial and federal agricultural and health authorities throughout the investigation.”

The investigation is still in its early days, the CFIA said.

Canada’s bovine TB record

Until this point, the only bovine tuberculosis cases confirmed in Canada since 2018 have originated in Saskatchewan. In February 2023, U.S. officials found the disease in a heifer that had come from Canada. After tracking that animal back to its originating farm, 32 animals in the herd were also found infected. Traceability did not find infection in any potential contact herds

Another case was confirmed in November 2024. Samples from a six-year-old cow, collected at an an abattoir in Alberta came back positive for infection. That cow was tracked back to a farm in Saskatchewan and the birth herd was quarantined. As of June 5, the CFIA had found 25 cases in the one infected herd, which has been depopulated.

Traceability efforts flagged 39 potentially linked herds, 12 of which have been released from quarantine.

In May, Saskatchewan beef producers took the government to task on bovine tuberculosis. They argued that farmers of infected farms should get better compensation, wildlife testing should be bolstered and that more work should be done on vaccines.

The post Bovine tuberculosis found in Manitoba appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

They want better compensation for affected producers, more work on vaccines for cattle and more emphasis on testing wildlife as possible vectors.

Many didn’t buy the idea that the TB didn’t come from elk or another cervid or that it could be spread to elk from cattle. Provincial wildlife health specialist Iga Stasiak said testing so far has not found any cases in elk or white-tailed deer, which are the predominant species in the region.

However, farmers in the room said the sheer numbers of elk are evidence enough for them.

Bovine TB was confirmed on a farm near Melville after a six-year-old cow tested positive at slaughter in Alberta in November 2024. Three additional cases were subsequently confirmed, although the animals were not born in the infected herd. The entire herd has been depopulated.

New TB strain

Canadian Food Inspection Agency regional veterinarian Allison Danyluk Ross told the meeting the strain of TB has never been found before, and its origin is unknown. She said strain origins are often not found.

“This bacteria is very sneaky, very hidden and very hard to find,” she said.

This is the second case of bovine TB in east-central Saskatchewan in the last two years. In both cases, the strains were new and not related to others.

Frustration in the room was palpable as producers wondered why their domestic livestock are treated differently than wildlife. They said their livelihoods are taken away when herds are depopulated as part of federal eradication efforts, but large-scale wildlife depopulation does not occur.

Wildlife reservoirs

Stasiak said there are places where the disease has definitely spread from cattle to wildlife. It is believed the bison in Wood Buffalo National Park became infected from cattle.

There have been notable wildlife reservoirs, such as the elk herds in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, which spilled into cattle and white-tailed deer and took about 25 years to eradicate.

The last case there was found in 2014, and she said testing continues without finding infections. A certain sample size is required to determine whether a population is disease-free, Stasiak said, and that can be a challenge because testing is done post-mortem and requires co-operation from hunters.

However, Levi Hull, Saskatchewan Cattle Association director for District 5, questioned whether eradication actually occurs.

“The point that I’m going to make is everybody in this room is held to a certain standard for trade, and my belief is the wildlife herd should be held at the exact same standard,” he told the meeting.

“So if I show up to your place and we have to depopulate your entire operation, we should be looking at the surrounding herds of wildlife as well.”

No positive cases found in wildlife

Stasiak repeatedly said there have been no positive cases found in wildlife. Both she and Danyluk Ross said the potential for transmission is highest in areas such as winter feeding troughs where a lot of animals are commingling. Eliminating shared feeding areas was part of the Manitoba approach to eradication.

Stasiak said a certain number of tests must be done in wildlife to be statistically valid, based on monitored populations in an area. After the 2023 detection, the environment ministry initiated a voluntary program for hunters to turn in samples. Last year it became mandatory.

The target is 350 samples; 300 are from white-tailed deer because that population is about five times higher than elk, she said. That target can be achieved over three years, based on the plan developed with CFIA.

During voluntary collection, 40 white-tailed deer, 10 elk, 33 moose and six mule deer were submitted.

During mandatory collection, 218 elk, 69 white-tailed deer and a few moose and mule deer were submitted. Culture results are still pending, but of all the tissues examined, none showed lesions that suggest bovine TB.

The objective for 2025 is to boost the white-tailed deer submissions because 200 more are required to obtain 95 percent confidence that the disease, if present, is at a level of one percent or lower.

Different standards for cattle

People at the meeting asked why the standard is different for cattle, and the answer is essentially international standards for trade. Also, there are some initial tests that can be done on live cattle that cannot be done on wildlife.

Hull also had concerns about how samples are handled by hunters compared to what happens at a cattle slaughter facility. As well, he said hunters typically shoot animals that look healthy, not the ones that look old and sick and might be displaying signs of TB.

Asked about the delay in culture tests dating back to the 2023 case, Stasiak said there is a delay because the cattle tests are prioritized.

She said the 2023 and 2024 farms are not too far apart, and it did beg the question of whether wildlife were the source. However, the strain genotyping showing they are very different strains indicates that isn’t likely.

She said people should not jump to conclusions.

Others said the testing targets aren’t high enough. CFIA epidemiologists have set the levels.

Hunting quotas in the region will be adjusted upward for this fall in response to higher elk populations. Stasiak said aerial surveys this spring in parts of wildlife management zones 37 and 48 found much higher numbers of elk than the ministry expected.

The post Saskatchewan cattle producers want bovine TB investigation to target wildlife appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In a notice to industry Feb. 25, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said they have found three more cases while testing the birth herd of an animal confirmed positive for bovine TB late last year.

The herd in question will be euthanized, the producer compensated as per CFIA regulations and tests will be done on all animals over a year old to determine how significantly infection had spread in the herd, the agency said.

Where were the cases found?

On Nov. 29, 2024, the CFIA confirmed bovine tuberculosis in samples from a six-year-old cow after the animal had been sent for slaughter in Alberta. The animal had been raised in Saskatchewan, the agency said. The birth herd was put in quarantine as tests were done and contact tracing began for other possibly exposed herds.

It was Saskatchewan’s second brush with bovine TB in recent years. In February 2023, Canadian officials got word from the United States Department of Agriculture that tests from an animal shipped from Saskatchewan the previous fall had come back positive. In June 2023, the CFIA confirmed two further cases in the Saskatchewan herd where the flagged animal had originated.

More herds to be tested

All of the three recently identified cases were born outside of their current herd, the agency said. The investigation and “applicable movement controls” has expanded to include the originating herds of those animals.

Any herds that have been in contact with the infected herd are up for testing, the CFIA said. Contact tracing will also cover any animals that left the herd in the last five years, as well as any herds that provided animals to the farm in the last five years. Testing will be done as needed.

The strain of bovine TB has also garnered attention. Lab testing of the case found in November 2024 “found a strain that has never been identified in animals or humans in Canada, and the origin of the strain is unknown. It is not closely related to any of the recent strains in Western Canada,” the Feb. 25 notice read.

The post Bovine tuberculosis cases found in Saskatchewan appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We don’t have a better test for humans either,” said one researcher, Shu-Hua Wang.

Wang is a professor of medicine at Ohio State University and director of research and implementation science with the Global One Health Initiative. She’s one of several scientists working on better, faster tests for TB in both humans and animals.

Controlling bovine TB has been a decades-long battle in Canada. This year, a confirmed case from a herd in Saskatchewan put the disease back in the headlines after a shipped heifer tested positive at a U.S. slaughter plant. The animal had left the Saskatchewan farm in fall 2022. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency was notified of confirmation in February.

An investigation found one infected Canadian herd. Thirty-two cases were identified. Contact, trace-in and trace-out herds were still being tested as of Nov. 10, the most recent update.

The procedure

When a bovine TB case is confirmed in Canada, all adult cattle that might have had contact with the sick animal must be tested. According to CFIA’s website, animals receive a blood test and a tuberculin skin test.

The skin test, invented around the turn of the 20th century, involves injecting fluid made from cultured TB bacteria under the animal’s skin. If, after 72 hours, the animal has swelling at the injection site, it has probably been exposed to tuberculosis.

If all animals test negative from both tests, the herd is released from quarantine. If any animal tests positive from either test, it is slaughtered and tissue samples are sent for DNA testing to confirm bovine tuberculosis.

If TB is found in the herd, all animals are “humanely depopulated,” CFIA materials say.

The next step is a CFIA investigation to track possible spread, which can take up to 14 weeks, according to the agency.

In an email exchange with a CFIA spokesperson this summer, Glacier FarmMedia was told that some testing connected with the Saskatchewan TB infections had been delayed to avoid stressing pregnant cows during calving season.

The tuberculin skin test requires handling the animals twice; once to inject, and once a few days later to check the test site.

Testing was delayed again because animals were out on pasture. The CFIA said the risk of transmission to other animals or people was low, reducing urgency.

Because some herds couldn’t be promptly tested, however, they had to remain quarantined for months, leaving ranchers in limbo.

False results

The standard tests are relatively inexpensive and rapid but, because they rely on detecting immune responses rather than bacteria, they can be inaccurate. Test-and-slaughter is currently standard practice due to those murky diagnostics, said Fred Quinn, head of the department of infectious diseases at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

They “slaughter them all … rather than try somehow to figure out if they’re actually infectious and transmitting,” he said.

“What would be ideal is if we actually had a test that would identify active disease,” he said later. “That’s what we’re all working on.”

Quinn also works with Wang on TB research.

Human health

Quinn and his colleagues aren’t tackling bovine TB at the behest of the agriculture industry.

At the turn of the 20th century, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States, as per the American Lung Association. Today, the disease is relatively rare in humans in North America.

Cases still pop up. In 2021, there were 1,829 active human TB cases in Canada, according to federal statistics. Worldwide, 10.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2022 and 1.3 million people died, according to the World Health Organization.

Quinn noted “massive amounts” of bovine TB in parts of South America, Africa and southeast Asia, but little testing.

Many of the human cases could have come from animals through contact or consumption of raw meat and unprocessed milk. It’s unknown how many global TB cases are animal-linked, but one study in Tunisia found that 70 per cent of human cases came from animals, Quinn said.

“One of the main reasons [why milk is pasteurized] is because of tuberculosis,” said Liliana Salvador. She is an assistant professor and infectious disease researcher at the University of Arizona’s School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences and another colleague of Quinn and Wang.

In a 2017 report, the WHO declared that its strategy to end TB by 2030 “must include zoonotic TB,” adding, “the human burden of disease cannot be reduced without improving standards of food safety and controlling bovine TB in the animal reservoir.”

Bovine TB also comes with another quirk affecting human health: it and the human strain have similar symptoms, but treatment used for human TB won’t work well on the bovine version, Salvador said.

It’s possible that an infected person wouldn’t be asked if they work with cattle or drink unpasteurized milk, Salvador added. If that person lives in a remote area, they may never return to the hospital.

“If, in some places, 70 per cent is bovine TB and it’s misdiagnosed, these people will never get better.”

Better tests?

One potential diagnostic method is derived from a urine test for HIV patients. Wang’s team collected urine from a potentially exposed herd of cattle at a slaughterhouse and found a high correlation between results from that test and the skin and blood tests.

Quinn also pointed to work on a serum-based test that would detect TB antigens only when the TB bacteria are reproducing. However, this can’t be done in the field. Samples must be sent to a lab and the test is expensive.

The team hopes to improve the technology, as both Quinn’s and Wang’s tests could identify active disease.

In 2017, scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said they’d made a breakthrough that could lead to a quick blood test for bovine TB, the CBC reported in April that year.

Researcher Harshini Mukundan, who worked for the laboratory at the time, told Glacier FarmMedia her team had been working on a blood-based diagnostic test for TB in humans. Since bovine and human TB produce similar biomarkers, they thought they might be able to apply the method to the bovine strain.

Early work was promising, Mukundan said, but after they published their report in 2017, little work was done on the project. The team was focused on human disease and didn’t have funding or bandwidth to pursue the bovine angle, she said.

Quinn admitted that funding is an issue and in wealthier countries, there’s little financial incentive to pursue better testing.

“In the U.S., Canada and the U.K. and Western Europe, [it’s] test and slaughter,” he said. “It’s good enough. But in the rest of the world, it’s not, and that’s where we have the problems.”

The threat of zoonotic TB is gaining more attention, and there’s hope that more funding will be given, Salvador said, indicating initiatives that bring together animal and human health sectors.

“I think that we are in a good path but I think it will still take a while.”

– Geralyn Wichers is an associate digital editor for Glacier FarmMedia.

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