Monthly Interferon-Gamma Test Reports for Bovine Tuberculosis in Great Britain, 2008

Cattle interferon-gamma (IFNg) test reports compiled by the UK's Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) for the year 2008. The dataset consists of 12 monthly PDF reports listing tests by country (England, Wales, Scotland), Animal Health Office (AHDO), and test reason, with data compiled from field staff and laboratory inputs. Each report was checked and deemed correct at the time of release, though subsequent minor corrections may appear in following months.

Use Cases

• Analyzing monthly and yearly trends in bovine tuberculosis testing based on the reported time-series data.
• Comparing testing volumes and outcomes across different UK countries (England, Wales, Scotland) mentioned in the description.
• Evaluating the performance of different Animal Health Offices (AHDOs) based on their reported test data.
• Assessing the distribution of testing reasons (e.g., surveillance, follow-up) for bovine tuberculosis control programs.

Strengths

• Provides a full calendar year of data (2008) for temporal trend analysis.
• Reports include three distinct aggregation levels: monthly, year-to-date, and total since program rollout (October 2006).
• Data underwent a quality check and was deemed correct at the time of each monthly release.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is provided in PDF format, which may require extraction and parsing to be used for analysis.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.

Provenance

Source

Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), UK Government

Collection Method

Compiled from field staff inputs and laboratory test information.

Time Range

January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008, with historical totals from October 23, III.

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland)