Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed expects to be in a position to make an announcement on the future role of a badger vaccination programme before the end of the year.

Responding to a parliamentary question recently, he said that a number of field trials have been taking place throughout the country, involving the vaccination of badgers by intramuscular injection with the human BCG vaccine.

“The field trials are now coming to a conclusion and the preliminary results are currently being evaluated.” Following this, he said he expects to make an announcement on such a vaccination programme before the end of the year.

The Minister also said that it is his Department's intention to deploy a full badger vaccination strategy as soon as robust scientific evidence becomes available to demonstrate that such a programme is practicable and will deliver an outcome equivalent to the existing wildlife programme.

In 2016, the Department announced that it plans to replace badger culling with a badger vaccination programme.

The outcome of these field trials is expected to determine whether the vaccination of badgers delivers an outcome equivalent to the current badger removal strategy.

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