www.ibtb.co.uk is an internet based Geographical Information System (GIS) for the dissemination of bovine TB (bTB) data – specifically the location of bTB incidents in England and Wales. The system has been developed jointly by the Data Systems Group (DSG), APHA and the Environmental Research Group Oxford (ERGO) and funded by Defra and the Welsh Government.
Prior to the development of ibTB there was general agreement that farmers and veterinarians would benefit from having access to better quality bTB information, to enable them to make informed biosecurity decisions e.g. Information on the location of local bTB incidents, so they could effectively isolate their cattle and information on the bTB situation in areas where they were considering purchasing cattle from. The rationale behind the development of www.ibtb.co.uk was to give the farming community access to this information. The initial version of the system first went online in the summer of 2015 and displayed both current (live) and historical incidents of bTB. Since then a series of upgrades have been implemented – the latest of which went live on 31/01/2022 and allows users to create bespoke displays of farms that have been free of bTB for a given number of years. Since its inception www.ibtb.co.uk has had over 200,000 hits from 100,000 unique users, showing there is an appetite from the farming community for access to this type of information and the system is now seen as a key component in Defra’s bTB eradication strategy.