Abstract
Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) testing in cattle requires a significant investment of time, equipment, and labor. Novel, rapid, cheaper and accurate methods are needed. The Alere Determine TB lipoarabinomannan antigen (LAM-test) is a World Health Organization-endorsed point-of-care urine test designed to detect active TB disease in humans. The Lionex Animal TB Rapid Test (Lionex-test) is a novel animal specific TB diagnostic blood test. An animal level analysis was performed using urine (n = 141) and milk (n = 63) samples from depopulated BTB-suspected cattle to test the accuracy of the LAM-test when compared to results of positive TB detection by any routine BTB tests (BOVIGAM, necropsy, histology, culture, PCR) that are regularly performed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The agreement between the urine LAM-test and USDA standard tests were poor at varying testing time points. The same milk samples did not elicit statistically significant agreement with the Lionex-test, although positive trends were present. Hence, we cannot recommend the LAM-test as a valid BTB diagnostic test in cattle using either urine or milk. The Lionex-test’s production of positive trends using milk samples suggests larger sample sizes may validate the Lionex-test in accurately diagnosing BTB in cattle using milk samples, potentially providing a quick and reliable field test for BTB.
Highlights
In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated 147,000 cases of zoonotic TB with 12,500 deaths[11]
There is a lack of accurate, field deployable standard field tests for veterinarians to establish quickly in the field if an animal is truly infected with M. bovis and/or has active BTB
In an attempt to address if two point of care tests could be useful to diagnose BTB, we evaluated the efficacy of the Alere Determine LAM TB Urine Antigen Test (LAM-test, initially designed for human TB) and Lionex Animal TB Rapid Blood Test (Lionex-test) in accurately diagnosing BTB in cattle using urine and milk samples, two non-invasive and obtainable samples
Summary
In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated 147,000 cases of zoonotic TB with 12,500 deaths[11]. Within the last 10 years, the USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) program has directed $342 million of its budget on US BTB surveillance and control[4]. This does not include the cost of indemnity payments to farmers, cleaning and disinfection of infected farms, or wildlife surveillance in BTB-infected regions. An animal can be considered a reactor upon slaughter inspection, necropsy, histology, PCR, and/or culture by the federal or state veterinarian performing or supervising[3] Compounding this issue is the reluctance of farmers to slaughter suspect BTB cattle for post-mortem testing (necropsy or histology) given the low prevalence of BTB in US cattle and subsequent high rate of false positives. This study determined if the Lionex-test could detect M. bovis in milk[19]
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