Detection of Tuberculosis in slaughtered food animals by using recent technique

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Food Control, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Benha University

2 Veterinary Serum and Vaccine Research Institute, Abbasia

3 Department of Bacteriology, Animal Health Research Institute, Mansoura

4 Department of Meat hygiene, Animal Health Research Institute, Mansoura

Abstract

Bovine tuberculosis is still a major infectious disease among animal population and its transmission to
human constitutes a public health problem. This study aimed to application of recent technique such as
PCR for detection of tuberculosis among cattle and buffaloes carcasses. A grand total of 52 animals (40
cattle and 12 buffaloes) were routinely examined in the slaughterhouses of Dakahlia governorate, Egypt
during the year 2014 for detection of tuberculosis. The suspected tuberculous lesions collected from
cattle were 19 from respiratory, 8 from digestive, 12 from head and 1 generalized lesion. While in
buffaloes, the tuberculous lesions were 3 from respiratory, 5 from digestive and 4 from head lesions.
The bacteriological examination revealed that the isolation rate of Mycobacterium bovis (M.bovis) was
75% and 58.3% in cattle and buffaloes, respectively. The PCR technique was applied to confirm the
results of bacteriological examination on 10 isolates of different mycobacteria and revealed 6 M.bovis
isolates were positive with high sensitivity and specificity (100%)

Keywords