Field trials of a cattle vaccine for bovine tuberculosis have been given the go-ahead as part of moves to phase out badger culling to tackle the disease. The trials are due to get under way in England and Wales to accelerate deployment of a cattle vaccine for TB by 2025, the government announced on Wednesday. It is part of a shift in strategy to phase out intensive culling of badgers, a protected species that can transmit the disease to livestock, and has been made possible by a breakthrough by the Animal and Plant Health Agency. Previously it was not possible to vaccinate cattle as tests for the disease could not differentiate between vaccinated animals and those that had bovine TB. A test has now been developed that can do this, and this test, known as Diva, will be trialled alongside the BCG vaccine. The field trials have been given the green light by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and will take place in two phases, with the second dependent on the outcome of the first. The first will establish the Diva skin test’s specificity – how likely it is to correctly give a negative result for uninfected animals – and its safety in about 300 unvaccinated animals from five TB-free herds in England and Wales. Phase two will establish the safety of the vaccine and the Diva test in vaccinated cattle and the specificity of the Diva test in around 2,000 cattle, 1,000 of which will be vaccinated and the other half used as a control. The environment secretary, George Eustice, said: “Bovine TB is a slow-moving and insidious disease which can cause considerable trauma for farmers as they suffer the loss of highly prized animals and valued herds. “This scientific breakthrough is a major step forwards in our battle to see the disease eradicated from this country. As wider preventive measures like cattle vaccines are introduced, we will accelerate other elements of our strategy and start to phase out badger culling, as no one wants to continue the cull of a protected species indefinitely.” The UK chief veterinary officer, Christine Middlemiss, said: “Whilst there is no single way to combat this damaging and complex disease, cattle vaccination is a potential new tool for our multi-pronged approach to tackle it and importantly prevent it, providing vital support to our farming communities.” Other measures in the strategy to tackle bovine TB, which leads to the slaughter of 40,000 animals a year, include improving the cattle testing regime and vaccinating more badgers. A cattle vaccine could spell the beginning of the end of the controversial policy of intensive badger culling, which farmers have said is necessary to control the spread of the disease. Despite opposition from wildlife and animal welfare groups, which say culling is inhumane and ineffective, the cull has been rolled out to 40 areas of England. Prof Lord John Krebs, who wrote a key report on badgers and TB in 1997, said that if the vaccine and Diva test were effective, it “will be a major breakthrough for TB control”.