TY - JOUR TI - The intractable challenge of evaluating cattle vaccination as a control for bovine Tuberculosis AU - Conlan, Andrew James Kerr AU - Vordermeier, Martin AU - de Jong, Mart CM AU - Wood, James LN A2 - Ferguson, Neil M VL - 7 PY - 2018 DA - 2018/06/05 SP - e27694 C1 - eLife 2018;7:e27694 DO - 10.7554/eLife.27694 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27694 AB - Vaccination of cattle against bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) has been a long-term policy objective for countries where disease continues to persist despite costly test-and-slaughter programs. The potential use of vaccination within the European Union has been linked to a need for field evaluation of any prospective vaccine and the impact of vaccination on the rate of transmission of bTB. We calculate that estimation of the direct protection of BCG could be achieved with 100 herds, but over 500 herds would be necessary to demonstrate an economic benefit for farmers whose costs are dominated by testing and associated herd restrictions. However, the low and variable attack rate in GB herds means field trials are unlikely to be able to discern any impact of vaccination on transmission. In contrast, experimental natural transmission studies could provide robust evaluation of both the efficacy and mode of action of vaccination using as few as 200 animals. KW - Bovine Tuberculosis KW - cattle KW - vaccination KW - trial design KW - disease dynamics KW - mathematical modelling JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -