Guidance

Vets: testing beef cattle for endemic disease follow-up

Published 19 June 2024

Applies to England

Endemic disease follow-up is not available for dairy cattle yet. This part of the service will be available soon.

Testing, sampling and advice 

Test type and sampling 

If the review test result is negative for bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD):

• then no further testing is required
• you must complete a BVD-focused biosecurity assessment

If the review test result is positive for BVD, you must:  

• do a persistently infected (PI) hunt on all cattle in the herd
• complete a BVD-focused biosecurity assessment

 You can do the PI hunt by one or a combination of:

• blood sampling (for virus)
• tissue sampling (via button tag)

You should not use the result of tissue sampling or blood sampling that was done before the follow-up.

If you’re confident the farmer has the expertise to do the tissue sampling, and they agree, they can take the samples. The farmer should not do the test. It should be done by an accredited laboratory.

No matter which combination of testing the farmer has chosen, you should test all  cattle in the herd.

Although tag and test is not funded directly through this service, a farmer can choose to invest themselves in this tool to maintain and monitor BVD disease status.

Read CHECS technical document on BVD for more information.

Biosecurity assessment

The BVD-focused assessment must cover:

• boundaries
• buying and selling habits (including quarantine approaches) as well as trojan cows and breeding bulls
• cleaning and disinfection procedures
• membership of accredited BVD programme (for example, CHECS)
• other aspects of farm management (for example, heifer rearing, training of staff)
• vaccination regime

You can use free online tools to help you in your assessment. 

Read the biosecurity advice and cattle purchasing checklist for more information.

Test sample laboratory analysis

Send the test sample to a laboratory for analysis. A farmer will not be eligible for funding unless the laboratory meets at least one of these specifications:

• ISO/IEC 17025 accredited
• UKAS accredited (UK accredited) for BVD testing

Find a recommended laboratory to test for BVD in cattle.

Test results

You should discuss the test results and any further action or recommendations with the farmer.

What documentation you need to give the farmer

When you have completed the follow-up, the farmer will ask you to give them:

• a written report
• a vet summary

Written report

It should include:

• laboratory test results if required
• advice or suggested health and welfare actions
• other findings, for example biosecurity recommendations and medicine usage
• actions to address issues from the follow-up – this is likely to be 2 to 3 but can be more or less based on individual needs
• information about other concerns the farmer raised

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will not ask to see the report.

Vet summary

The summary gives the information the farmer needs to make a claim. We suggest you use the vet summary templates for cattle follow-up testing. Using this will give the farmer the information they need to claim. 

The RPA may ask to see the summary as evidence that the review or follow-up took place. It should be a separate document. 

If you choose to use your own summary template to give to the farmer, it must include:

• the agreement number
• the name of the business where the follow-up took place
• the single business identifier (SBI)
• the species the farmer chose for the follow-up
• the date of the vet’s last visit to the farm for the follow-up
• confirmation the farmer had the minimum number of animals required on the date of the follow-up
• confirmation the vet gave the farmer a written report
• the vet’s name
• the vet’s signature and date – the signature can be digital or on paper
• the vet’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) number

If the review result is negative for BVD, the summary must also include: 

• the test results from the review done in the last 10 months 
• confirmation a biosecurity assessment has been done

If the review result is positive for BVD, the summary must also include: 

• the test results from the initial review 
• the date samples were taken for the follow-up
• confirmation that a PI hunt was done on all animals in the herd 
• the test results from the follow-up 
• the laboratory unique reference number (URN) or certificate number for the test results  
• confirmation the vet did a biosecurity assessment