Abstract

Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) remains a disease of economic and public health importance in developing countries. In countries where bovine milk is not pasteurized before use, bovine tuberculosis has emerged as the single major cause of extra-pulmonary human tuberculosis. The aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in 46 suspected cattle maintained in a private farm at Egypt using the single intra dermal tuberculin test (SITT) and enzyme-linked immunsorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of the public health hazards through mycobacterial culture of the bovine milk and farm workers sputum. The SITT results revealed that 58.7 and 23.91% of the tested animals were true positive and suspected tuberculin reactors, respectively. ELISA results showed that using the mammalian tuberculin as an antigen, 50% of the bovine serum samples were positive. Combining the SITT and ELISA results, 30.5 and 13.0% of the examined animals were considered to be true and suspect infected with Mycobacterium bovis, respectively. Mycobacterial culture identification revealed that 4.35% of the collected 23 bovine milk samples were positive for M. bovis isolation. 40% of the examined farm workers were positive by tuberculin and ELISA tests, while their sputum samples were negative for mycobacterial culture. In conclusion, these results showed that 30.5 and 40% of the examined dairy cattle and farm workers were infected with bovine tuberculosis. Presence of M. bovis in milk represented a major source of infection to human and other animals. The possible way of bringing down the incidence of BTB in animals and humans is by adopting some strict and uniform control measures for animals and workers at farms.

Key words: Bovine tuberculosis, SITT, ELISA, milk, sputum, public health hazard.