Abstract
Public interest in animal tuberculosis is mainly focused on prevention and eradication of bovine tuberculosis in cattle and wildlife. In cattle, immunodiagnostic tests such as the tuberculin skin test or the interferon gamma (IFN-γ) assay have been established and are commercially available. Feline tuberculosis is rather unknown, and the available diagnostic tools are limited. However, infections with Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex members need to be considered an aetiological differential diagnosis in cats with granulomatous lymphadenopathy or skin nodules and, due to the zoonotic potential, a time-efficient and accurate diagnostic approach is required. The present study describes 11 independent cases of Mycobacterium microti infection in domestic cats in Switzerland. For three cases, clinical presentation, diagnostic imaging, bacteriological results, immunodiagnostic testing, and pathological features are reported. An adapted feline IFN-γ release assay was successfully applied in two cases and appears to be a promising tool for the ante mortem diagnosis of tuberculosis in cats. Direct contact with M. microti reservoir hosts was suspected to be the origin of infection in all three cases. However, there was no evidence of M. microti infection in 346 trapped wild mice from a presumptive endemic region. Therefore, the source and modalities of infection in cats in Switzerland remain to be further elucidated.
Highlights
Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the most important infectious diseases of humans worldwide, with about one third of the world’s population carrying the bacteria and 1.5 million deaths in 2018 [1]
Between 2014 and 2019 a total of 11 natural cases of feline tuberculosis caused by M. microti and originating from seven different cantons in Switzerland were identified (Tables 1A,B)
Blood samples originating from two culture confirmed M. microti infected cats (Cases 1 and 3) reacted more intensely to BoPPD stimulation than AvPPD stimulation, indicating prior sensibilisation to M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC) antigens (Table 2)
Summary
Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the most important infectious diseases of humans worldwide, with about one third of the world’s population carrying the bacteria and 1.5 million deaths in 2018 [1]. Wildlife reservoirs play an important and sometimes unpredictable role in disease transmission to farm animals, e.g., badgers in the UK [4], Diagnostics of Feline Tuberculosis possums in New Zealand [5], or wild boars in Spain [6]. The control of such animal reservoirs can directly influence the prevalence of human TB, as seen in New Zealand [7, 8] or the UK [9]. In Switzerland, a first case of M. microti infection in a cat was reported in 2011 [23]
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