Abstract
Summary Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis (bTB), is a multihost pathogen of public health and veterinary importance. We characterized the M. bovis isolated at the human–livestock–wildlife interface of the Serengeti ecosystem to determine the epidemiology and risk of cross‐species transmission between interacting hosts species. DNA was extracted from mycobacterial cultures obtained from sputum samples of 472 tuberculosis (TB) suspected patients and tissue samples from 606 livestock and wild animal species. M. bovis isolates were characterized using spoligotyping and Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units‐Variable Tandem Repeats (MIRU‐VNTR) on 24 loci. Only 5 M. bovis were isolated from the cultured samples. Spoligotyping results revealed that three M. bovis isolates from two buffaloes (Syncerus caffer) and 1 African civet (Civettictis civetta) belonged to SB0133 spoligotype. The two novel strains (AR1 and AR2) assigned as spoligotype SB2290 and SB2289, respectively, were identified from indigenous cattle (Bos indicus). No M. bovis was detected from patients with clinical signs consistent with TB. Of the 606 animal tissue specimens and sputa of 472 TB‐suspected patients 43 (7.09%) and 12 (2.9%), respectively, yielded non‐tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), of which 20 isolates were M. intracellulare. No M. avium was identified. M. bovis isolates from wildlife had 45.2% and 96.8% spoligotype pattern agreement with AR1 and AR2 strains, respectively. This finding indicates that bTB infections in wild animals and cattle were epidemiologically related. Of the 24 MIRU‐VNTR loci, QUB 11b showed the highest discrimination among the M. bovis strains. The novel strains obtained in this study have not been previously reported in the area, but no clear evidence for recent cross‐species transmission of M. bovis was found between human, livestock and wild animals.
Highlights
Bovine tuberculosis is a bacterial zoonosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis
Using spoligotyping and mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRU)-variable-number tandem repeats (VNTRs) analysis, this study aimed to investigate M. bovis diversity and whether bovine tuberculosis (bTB) transmission is occurring across species at the human–animal interface of the Serengeti ecosystem
Of the 43 non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) species that were detected from animals, 25, 11 and seven species were sampled from Serengeti district, Ngorongoro district and from wildlife species in the ecosystem, respectively
Summary
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a bacterial zoonosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis. The emergence of zoonotic diseases in human-livestock-wildlife interface areas has been primarily facilitated by anthropogenic changes due to agriculture and human pressure (Rhyan and Spraker, 2010). The presence of wildlife reservoirs acting as spillover hosts for M. bovis in human–animal interface areas has interfered with the eradication of bTB in many countries (Thoen et al, 2009). In Tanzania, infection due to M. bovis has been reported in a range of hosts including cattle (Kazwala et al, 1998; Shirima et al, 2003; Mdegela et al, 2004; Cleaveland et al, 2007; Durnez et al, 2009; Mwakapuja et al, 2013a), humans (Mfinanga et al, 2004) and wildlife species (Cleaveland et al, 2005). Evidence for interspecies transmission is supported by the genetic relatedness between M. bovis isolated from infected wildlife and local livestock or between livestock and man (Kazwala et al, 2006; Clifford et al, 2013). Spillover of bTB from livestock to wildlife or humans, and spillback from wildlife to livestock are influenced by environmental conditions, human behaviour and type of interface (de Garine-Wichatitsky et al, 2013)
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