As indicated publicly last month (view here), the expected additional farm within the Wakanui controlled area notice (CAN) has now been confirmed infected. This property is in the ‘high-risk’ area (red) of the CAN and has been under movement restrictions since August 2022.

Investigations on this property are underway and we are working closely with the farmer. The CAN, which came into force on 13 October is a precautionary measure to restrict the movement of cattle in an effort to stop M. bovis circulating in the area and coincides with the planned depopulation of a nearby feedlot, which is an important next step towards eradication – read the full announcement.

With high levels of network and national surveillance being undertaken and very few new active confirmed properties, we can be cautiously optimistic that good progress has been made towards eradication, and that we are in the ‘tail end’ of the disease outbreak. We’ve come a long way from the height of the programme when there was a peak of 40 confirmed properties across the country to the small number of farms now and farmers have made huge sacrifices. We are committed to hunting down the last remaining infection.