The number of animals testing positive for TB remains at six, all of
them owned by one ranch that has cattle on 18 premises.
Most of the premises are in Alberta, but there are five in Saskatchewan.
None of the five animals that tested positive for TB had
lesions or other clinical signs of the disease when post mortem inspections
were conducted.
The CFIA is not saying whether the test results were “false
positives,” but on the basis of post mortems, that seems likely.
The one animal that has been confirmed positive after
slaughter was a cow shipped to the United States where inspectors detected TB,
triggering the Canadian investigations and quarantines.
“All farms
currently under quarantine are scheduled for on-farm testing,” the CFIA says on
its website.
“Based on the
current quarantines and pace of testing, all on-farm testing for test-eligible
animals currently under quarantine is expected to be completed by early January
2017.
The CFIA's credibility is beginning to crumble, given the handling of this case and the quarantine and slaughter of a flock of genetically-special sheep in Ontario that it now seems likely were never infected with scrapie.
