Abstract
We investigated the spatial epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in wildlife in a multihost system. We surveyed bovine TB in Portugal by serologic analysis of elutes of dried blood spots obtained from hunted wild boar. We modeled spatial disease risk by using areal generalized linear mixed models with conditional autoregressive priors. Antibodies against Mycobaterium bovis were detected in 2.4% (95% CI 1.5%–3.8%) of 678 wild boar in 2 geographic clusters, and the predicted risk fits well with independent reports of M. bovis culture. Results show that elutes are an almost perfect substitute for serum (Cohen unweighted κ = 0.818), indicating that serologic tests coupled with dried blood spots are an effective strategy for large-scale bovine TB surveys, using wild boar as sentinel species. Results also show that bovine TB is an emerging wildlife disease and stress the need to prevent further geographic spread and prevalence increase.
Highlights
We investigated the spatial epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in wildlife in a multihost system
According to the manufacturer’s instructions, a Protein Saver (PS) card absorbs 80 μL of blood, and an Flinders Technology Associates (FTA) card absorbs 125 μL of blood. These samples were further divided into 5 portions that were incubated overnight refrigerated in 200 μL of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), and the elute obtained was subjected to serologic analysis
We found that 11 paired serum samples and PS elutes were positive for antibodies against bovine PPD, 9 were negative for both, and 2 were positive in serum and negative in elutes
Summary
We investigated the spatial epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in wildlife in a multihost system. We surveyed bovine TB in Portugal by serologic analysis of elutes of dried blood spots obtained from hunted wild boar. Results show that elutes are an almost perfect substitute for serum (Cohen unweighted κ = 0.818), indicating that serologic tests coupled with dried blood spots are an effective strategy for large-scale bovine TB surveys, using wild boar as sentinel species. In 2011, the Portuguese Animal Health Directorate (Lisbon, Portugal) established a surveillance area for bovine TB in large game species, encompassing regions where the disease was known to be present in wild ungulate populations (Figure 1, panel B). Bovine TB in wildlife shows spatial structuring in the Iberian Peninsula. Spatial analyses of bovine TB on wildlife in the Iberian Peninsula, other than disease mapping, are notably lacking
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