FEARS are growing that TB could become a greater threat to human health after the reported number of infected pets, domestic animals and deer rose four-fold in a year.

Campaigners say the Government figures are proof that the infection is "out of control", and that action must now be taken. And vets say the risk of animal-to-human transmission is increased when pets are the carriers, because they are not routinely monitored, and there is more regular close contact between species.

One farming group says badgers, widely thought to spread the disease, should come with a "health warning for pets", and has called for a targeted cull in hot spots such as Devon, where three-quarters of the badger population is thought to be infected.

Last year, 119 non-bovine creatures contracted the disease, including 33 goats, 31 wild deer, 18 pet cats, 13 alpacas and 10 pigs. Sheep, llamas, dogs and farmed and park deer also fell victim to the strain, which has been responsible for the death of 200,000 cattle over the past 10 years.

Cases of other animals to be diagnosed has leapt, compared with zero in 1997. The Government says the rise is partially due to TB becoming notifiable in domestic animals two years ago.

But last year's figure was four times that of the previous year, when 29 cases were recorded. The highest total over the past decade was in 2005 and 2006, each with 30 cases.

Most farmers believe animals such as those in the latest figures contract the disease from badgers. But the Government has refused to follow the example of Wales and carry out a targeted cull of badgers believed to be carrying TB. In Cornwall, a recently slaughtered pig was found to have lesions in its brain at the abattoir. The disease is not thought to spread between pigs and the farmer insisted the woodland where it lived was devoid of all other species, except badgers.

The farmer did not want to be named, but he was traced because the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has erected a notice warning that he is under TB restriction on his farm on the outskirts of Wadebridge.

He is a beef farmer who keeps a handful of pigs roaming in fenced-off private woodland and says he prides himself on tight bio-security. "These pigs haven't come into contact with anything other than wildlife, and that's badgers," he said.

He is unable to sell live animals, and can only send pigs to the abattoir while the restriction is in place.

Researchers warned last year that bovine TB was a potent risk to human health after it was revealed a woman, believed to be a veterinary nurse from Cornwall, was diagnosed with the disease in 2007, providing evidence that the disease could cross between species.

The patient and her daughter were both treated with a course of drugs while the family's pet dog, which began showing symptoms two months later, was put down and subsequently confirmed as having the same strain of the bacteria causing bovine TB.

Jilly Greed, South West spokesman for the National Beef Association, said she was "shocked" by the sharp increase in the number of cases.

"Badgers need to come with a health warning for pets because TB is clearly so endemic in wildlife now that it's absolutely beyond control in hot spots such as Devon. Defra can't carry on ignoring the problem. It will just end up with the perpetual recycling of the disease."

She said the answer had to include a targeted cull, because badgers could not be vaccinated once they were already infected. But she said a vaccine could be used as a firebreak to stop the spread further up country.

Mrs Greed, whose family farm is at Thorverton in Mid Devon, said the latest cases suggested diseased badgers had been foraging in domestic animals' food sources or there had been nose-to-nose contact with pigs.

John Gallagher, a former Government adviser on TB, said the badger population mushroomed by 80 per cent in recent years. "If there are more badgers, there are more diseased badgers. We have known about this since the mid-1970s but nothing has been done in any serious manner.."

But Jack Reedy, vice-chairman of the Badger Trust, said: "There is no doubt that the massively greater reservoir of bovine TB lies in the small proportion of the national cattle population affected, and that is where the remedies must be applied, even though they are costly and inconvenient to the industry."

A Defra spokesman said: "We have measures in place to reduce spread and incidence of disease which include regular testing, taking a zero tolerance approach to overdue tests and pre-movement testing.

"A five-year injectable badger vaccine deployment project will begin in six areas of 100 sq-kilometres of cattle farmland in areas of high TB incidence in cattle next year."