PRESS INFORMATION
March
12, 2009
NML WINS MAJOR NEW
DISEASE SURVEILLANCE CONTRACTS
National
Milk Laboratories (NML) has been awarded two new contracts, one with Ireland's
largest milk recording organisation Progressive Genetics and the other with the
Royal Veterinary College, to carry out disease tests as part of surveillance
programmes in dairy and beef cattle.
As
part of a new initiative to improve dairy herd health, Dublin based farmer
cooperative Progressive Genetics will use NML to carry out disease tests on milk
samples supplied from its herds. This will be an integral part of its new
health screening service known as Progressive Herd Health, that has been
developed for its 2500 producers to encourage them to adopt regular screening
for key diseases such as IBR, BVD and Johne's Disease. As part of this
service, producers will submit regular milk samples that will be tested by NML
in its Wolverhampton laboratory.
We
have completed a pilot test with Progressive to ensure that the
logistics are in place and that they are confident we can offer an
efficient and cost-effective service", says NML's Hannah Pearse.
"Based
on the success of the trial, which also included a series of briefings to vets
in southern Ireland, Progressive has committed to NML for disease testing and
dissemination of results to producers and their vets via the internet for its
new Herd Health service."
Progressive
Herd Health supports the Irish Government's drive to improve the health of dairy
herds in the country. And response from Progressive's producers has been
encouraging. "Those producers involved in the pilot study in autumn
were encouraged by the service and felt that it gave an accurate indication of
the health status of their herd", says Kevin Meade, Chairman of Progressive
Genetics.
"This
screening service is a positive step forwards as diseases such as BVD, IBR and
Johne's have the ability to seriously undermine the profitability of dairy
farmers," he adds. "But successful control requires producers to
take advantage of the new service in conjunction with their vets in order to
access the level of infection in their herds and implement a bio-security plan
to eradicate or contain these infectious diseases.
NML's
second contract is with the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) to carry out disease
testing as part of a three year biosecurity project. NML will test blood
samples from 50 cows in 120 beef herds for BVD, Lepto, IBR and Johne's disease,
amounting to 18,000 tests in the trial period.
NML
is part of the NMR group of companies and carries out bulk milk tests for
payment purposes on behalf of UK milk buyers for 95% of herds. It also
operates an extensive disease testing service on behalf of UK vets and producers
as part of one-off or surveillance programmes.
ENDS
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