Mycoplasma Bovis

A farm is a forward trace if MPI finds they have received animals, milk or other risk goods from a farm of interest (which is a Restricted Property or Infected Property – RP or IP).

We find most of our traces by looking at:

· NAIT movements from the farm of interest
· RP/IP farmer written reports produced by disease investigators
· Public reports from farmers who have a movement that is not recorded in NAIT

These movements are entered into our database, and our Casing team will call the trace farm to check the details and confirm whether they received the risk movement. Calls from farmers are also entered into the database at this point. This is the point where farms hear that they are a trace farm.

Ideally, a casing call for an urgent trace will occur within three days of finding the trace.

The Surveillance team will then review the information Casing puts in the database:

· Where the risk movement is from
· When it happened
· Whether the trace animals are still on the farm
· Whether any animals on farm were in contact with the trace.

Depending on this information and risk analysis, some farms are ruled out and removed from the trace list. If more investigation is needed, the farm will hear from AsureQuality who books in testing.

When the call is made to book the first round of testing, a trace farm will know that they are under surveillance. Unfortunately, MPI doesn’t have enough people to call every trace farm to tell them that they are NOT under surveillance, but if you are under surveillance you will get that second call to book testing. The timeframe depends on the urgency – higher risk farms will be contacted sooner than lower risk farms. Ideally the call to book testing is made within one or two days after we know we need to put a farm under surveillance.