The bacterial cattle disease has never been far from the headlines since it was confirmed for the first time in New Zealand on a dairy farm near Morven on July 22 last year.
The Ministry for Primary Industries, via its new Biosecurity New Zealand arm, released its ''Mycoplasma bovis response stakeholder update 100'' late on Friday afternoon.
The map included showed Central Rural Life territory liberally sprinkled with blue blobs denoting infected properties.
The three latest ones discovered were all in Canterbury, connected to other known infections through animal movements.
M. bovis has been found on 55 farms during the year. Fifteen of those have had their cattle slaughtered and completed the required decontamination and stand-down period. They could now be restocked.
Canterbury leads the list of infected properties with a total of 24, 18 of which are still quarantined. Southland has had 17 altogether, 14 current.
Four of the eight Otago properties are still infected, as are the two confirmed in Waikato, one of the two in Hawkes Bay, and the single properties in Pahiatua
and Masterton.
By Thursday last week, the ministry had received 219 compensation claims and paid out $13,304,793 on 80 of them. Seventy were paid in full and 10 in part.
Now that calving was under way, the ministry advised dairy farmers to send bobby calves and slinks for processing as usual.
''Transporting bobby calves has a negligible risk of spreading M. bovis because they go directly to processing plants and not on to other farms,'' it said.
''Vehicles pose a very low risk of spreading the disease.
Additionally, trucks taking calves from affected farms will not go to unaffected farms.''
A second round of nationwide milk testing would start shortly after calving, when cows were most likely to shed M. bovis bacteria.
Samples would be collected from each farm about four weeks following the start of milk supply.
Farmers should take precautions with calf-rearing, the ministry said.
Those buying livestock should research the animals' origins and check Nait numbers.
It has a list of Nait numbers for farms under quarantine.
It recommended farmers read DairyNZ's guidelines on minimising risks.
Anyone who could spare feed for farmers affected by the outbreak was asked to email: MBovis2017Liaison@mpi.govt.nz