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Background and Aim: Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that affects humans and animals. This study aimed to review the influence of economic and organizational, veterinary, and sanitary measures on the epizootic situation of animal tuberculosis and the epidemiological situation of human tuberculosis in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Materials and Methods: The epizootic situation of cattle tuberculosis in Kazakhstan was studied based on the annual statistics of allergy testing of animals with tuberculosis by the Committee for Veterinary Control and Supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan, according to the results of allergic, clinical, and pathological studies, including laboratory studies of biomaterials from animals that reacted to tuberculin. Tuberculinization of cattle in the country is performed twice in the spring and autumn using tuberculin purified protein derivative for mammals. In addition, mass diagnosis of human tuberculosis is conducted by radiology. Results: The authors assessed the epizootic situation of tuberculosis in cattle in Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019. The analysis results showed that at the beginning, the epizootic situation in cattle tuberculosis was challenging. However, since 2001, there has been a noticeable decrease in tuberculosis in animals in Kazakhstan, which has had a favorable effect on the epidemic situation of human tuberculosis. Conclusion: According to the analysis results, the measures used in the Republic of Kazakhstan to prevent tuberculosis improved the well-being of livestock farms. The proper conduct by qualified veterinary specialists on allergy testing of animals and differential diagnosis of nonspecific tuberculin reactions allows establishing an accurate epizootic picture of tuberculosis. Furthermore, strict adherence to instructions on the diagnosis and prevention of tuberculosis, implementation of developed veterinary, sanitary, and organization, and economic measures can improve the epizootic picture of tuberculosis, reducing the risk of human tuberculosis.

SummaryThe 4th Global Forum on TB Vaccines, convened in Shanghai, China, from 21 – 24 April 2015, brought together a wide and diverse community involved in tuberculosis vaccine research and development to discuss the current status of, and future directions for this critical effort. This paper summarizes the sessions on Biomarkers and Correlates, and Human Challenge Models. Summaries of all sessions from the 4th Global Forum are compiled in a special supplement of Tuberculosis. [August 2016, Vol 99, Supp S1, S1–S30].

France is currently facing a re-emergence of bovine tuberculosis in several regions. To assess the knowledge of veterinary field practitioners concerning skin testing, a questionnaire-based methodology developed in Belgium was adapted to the context of the French department of Dordogne. The veterinarians involved in herds skin testing were solicited to participate to the survey (n = 94), through an anonymous postal questionnaire including items related to each step of the skin test procedure. Each item of the questionnaire was allotted a compliance score by 5 experts in the field of bovine tuberculosis (0, 1 or 2 a correct, acceptable and unacceptable answer, respectively). These scores were balanced over 30 criteria according to their potential impact on the non-detection of reactors, on the basis of 11 experts' opinion. A global score was calculated for each participating veterinarian. In addition, the Departmental sanitary authorities held meetings in December 2005 and June 2006 to make the veterinarians aware of the importance of correctly performing the skin test. The participants to the study were asked to fill in the questionnaire in duplicate: one related to their practices before the meeting, and the other one focusing on their practices after the meeting. A comparison of both situations was carried out (pre- and post-awareness meeting), as well as a comparison with the Belgian situation, arbitrarily selected as reference for the methodology. The participation was representative and reached a 23.4% rate. A significant difference was noticed between the mean global score reached before and after the meeting. These results show the usefulness of an appropriate awareness campaign of veterinarians in relation to skin testing and the importance of frequently holding awareness meetings in areas remaining confronted with bovine tuberculosis problems. It also highlights the interest of a structured auto-assessment process of veterinary practices.

Several antigens have been produced and/or secreted from the mycobacterium bovis. The agent of bovine tuberculosis (TB) is used to detect this disease in cattle through the serological ELISA test (a, b, c, d and e). In this work, we propose a novel approach to improve the diagnosis bovine tuberculosis. In order to select the antigens with top priority, the proposed methodology is based on a comparison of their power of characterization. Experimental results are analyzed using two categories: sick (TB +) and not sick (TB −). By extracting some original features and thanks to the unsupervised Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) classification, 89% is achieved as classification accuracy. Compared to previous works, the proposed expert system is very promising and helpful for the veterinary diagnosis of tuberculosis.

Pode o ser humano contrair tuberculose pela ingestão do leite de vacas tuberculosas? São efetivos o diagnóstico e o controle da tuberculose bovina para a proteção da população humana? Questões como estas estiveram em pauta no pensamento médico paulistano no início do século XX. O presente estudo procurou reconstituir elementos da polêmica travada em São Paulo, com o intuito de incentivar a divulgação de dados suplementares sobre a matéria. Aqui são apresentadas indicações sintéticas das posições em confronto: de um lado, as preocupações em intensificar as ações de controle do gado tuberculoso; de outro, o cuidado de não prejudicar os criadores nacionais com a demanda de precauções adicionais, as quais se temia serem lesivas à comercialização do produto. O acompanhamento das intervenções sobre o tema na imprensa médica permitiu identificar a preponderância da primeira posição, com conseqüências para o controle sanitário de alimentos. Can human beings get tuberculosis from the milk taken from cows infected with tuberculosis? Are the diagnosis and control of cattle tuberculosis effective for the protection of human populations? Questions such as these were the main concern of doctors from São Paulo at the beginning of the twentieth century. The present study tried to recover elements from the polemic that took place in São Paulo, in order to encourage the coming up of complementary facts about such matter. The article presents some indicators of confronting positions: on one hand, the goal of intensifying the control of tuberculosis among the cattle; on the other hand, the attempt not to bring up any loss to national cattle raisers through the demand of additional precaution measures, which would affect the production and distribution of their products. Medical publications kept records of the interventions, which have allowed the author to identify the first position as the stronger one, which has brought up relevant consequences for the sanitary food control.

Eradication of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle is a priority in the EU. However, and despite the resources invested, TB eradication is still a goal yet to be accomplished. As a consequence, the identification of risk factors contributing to TB transmission and persistence is key to a better understand and, ultimately, more cost-effectively control and eradicate this complex zoonotic disease worldwide. This study aimed to identify the factors contributing to the TB occurrence, new infection, and persistence in one of the most TB-prevalent regions in the South-Central part of Spain (SCS), Ciudad Real (CR), and for which high quality and detailed information on cattle and wild ungulate demographics, management, and sanitary status was available for up to 5 years (2007-2011). Multilevel logistic modeling was used for this purpose. Results of this study revealed that the risk for TB (occurrence, new infection, and/or persistence) in cattle herds from CR is related to TB-persistence on farm in previous years, extensive production systems (beef and bullfighting being more risky that dairy) and large farm in terms of cattle number. Also, the presence and proximity of fenced hunting estates (which are usually intensively managed) significantly contributed to the risk of TB occurrence and persistence in CR. This association suggests that wild ungulates may play a role as TB-reservoirs and transmit TB to cattle in the CR, a region where TB is endemic and is associated with extensive farming of beef cattle. To the best of author's knowledge this is the first study to (i) evaluate the wild ungulate-domestic interface at a farm level using detailed information over an extensive region and period of time (2007-2011) and (ii) to identify a direct association between TB in cattle and the proximity and management practices of wild ungulates. Methods and results presented here may support policies to better prevent and control TB in the SCS and in other regions/countries with similar epidemiological conditions., This study has been funded by the research projects FAU2008-0004-C03, AGL2010-20730-C02-01 and JCCM PPEII 10-0262-7673. This is a contribution to EU project number 278976 (ANTIGONE). Beatriz Martínez-López held a Juan de la Cierva post-doctoral contract (JCI-2011-10724) and Victor Rodríguez-Prieto holds a FPU pre-doctoral scholarship, both funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

Mycobacterium bovis, a member of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, is the most common agent of cattle tuberculosis, a zoonosis that causes losses in meat and milk production in several countries. In order to support epidemiological studies aimed at controlling the disease, several methods for molecular discrimination of M. bovis isolates have recently been developed. The most frequently used are spacer oligonucleotide typing (spoligotyping), mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRU), and exact tandem repeat (ETR), but they all have different discriminatory power. In the present study, allelic diversity was calculated for each MIRU and ETR locus, and the Hunter-Gaston discriminatory index (HGI) was calculated for spoligotyping, 10 MIRUs, and 3 ETRs, in 116 isolates of M. bovis obtained from cattle. The analysis of allelic diversity indicated that MIRUs 16, 26, and 27, and ETRs A, B, and C, showed the greatest diversity between the assayed loci. The HGIs for each of the techniques were: spoligotyping=0.738381; MIRU=0.829835; and ETR=0.825337. The associations of the methods' improved discriminatory power were: spoligotyping+MIRU=0.930585; spoligotyping+ETR=0.931034; and MIRU+ETR=0.953373. The greatest discriminatory power was obtained when the three techniques were associated (HGI=0.98051). Considering the analyses of the present study, spoligotyping should be the first method to be used because it differentiates M. bovis from the other members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. As the associations of MIRU and ETR with spoligotyping resulted in nearly identical HGIs, ETR seems to be the best choice after spoligotyping, because it is faster and more economical than MIRU. Finally, MIRU should be the last method used. In spite of this finding, the choice of the method used should be based on the discriminatory power necessary for the objective at hand.

Summary Background The effective control of human and livestock diseases is challenging where infection persists in wildlife populations. The Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) demonstrated that, while it was underway, proactive badger ( Meles meles ) culling reduced bovine tuberculosis (TB) incidence inside culled areas but increased incidence in neighboring areas, suggesting that the costs of such culling might outweigh the benefits. Objectives and design The objective of this study was to investigate whether culling impacts persisted more than one year following the cessation of culling (the ‘post-trial' period). We compared TB incidence in and around RBCT proactive culling areas with that in and around matched unculled areas. Results : During the post-trial period, cattle TB incidence inside culled areas was reduced, to an extent significantly greater ( p =0.002) than during culling. In neighboring areas, elevated risks observed during culling were not observed post-trial ( p =0.038). However, the post-trial effects were comparable to those observed towards the end of the trial (inside RBCT areas: p =0.18 and neighboring areas: p =0.14). Conclusions Although to-date the overall benefits of culling remain modest, they were greater than was apparent during the culling period alone. Continued monitoring will demonstrate how long beneficial effects last, indicating the overall capacity of such culling to reduce cattle TB incidence.

The four-area project was undertaken to further assess the impact of badger removal on the control of tuberculosis in cattle herds in Ireland. It was conducted between 1997 and 2002 in matched removal and reference areas in four counties, namely Cork, Donegal, Kilkenny and Monaghan, representing a wide range of Irish farming environments. In the removal areas, a proactive programme of badger removal was conducted, on two or three occasions each year, whereas in the reference areas, badger removal was entirely reactive following severe outbreaks of tuberculosis amongst cattle. A detailed statistical analysis of this study has already been presented by Griffin et al. [13]; this paper presents further, mainly descriptive, findings from the study. In total, 2,360 badgers were captured in the removal areas of which 450 (19.5%) were considered positive for tuberculosis and 258 badgers were captured in the reference areas, with 57 (26.1%) positive for tuberculosis. The annual incidence of confirmed herd restrictions was lower in the removal area compared to the reference area in every year of the study period in each of the four counties. These empirical findings were consistent with the hazard ratios found by Griffin et al. [13]. Further, the effect of proactive badger removal on cattle tuberculosis in the four-area project and in the earlier east-Offaly project, as measured using the number of reactors per 1,000 cattle tested, were very similar, providing compelling evidence of the role of badgers in the epidemiology of tuberculosis in Irish cattle herds. The validity of the four-area project was discussed in detail. Efforts to minimise badger-to-cattle transmission in Ireland must be undertaken in association with the current comprehensive control programme, which has effectively minimised opportunities for cattle-to-cattle transmission.

A study has been made in Sweden to investigate whether the risk of tuberculous infection and its trend with time in man in different areas were related to varying prevalences of tuberculous infection in cattle. It was found that the level of the infection risk in man was related to the prevalence of tuberculous infection in cattle, varying from 3·4 per cent in 1935 at age 15 in counties with less than 2 per cent infected cattle to 5·8 per cent in counties with 20 per cent infected cattle or more. However, the downward trend of the risk of infection with time was not found to be associated with the prevalence of tuberculous infection in cattle. The correlation between the risk of infection in man and the prevalence of infection in cattle in the 24 Swedish counties was positive and highly significant (+0·79). The relationship between cattle tuberculosis and tuberculosis in man was further studied by correlating infection in cattle with tuberculosis mortality and morbidity in man. The correlation with mortality was negative and highly significant (−0·77), i.e. counties with little cattle tuberculosis had a high tuberculosis mortality in man, and vice versa . There were similar large negative correlations with measures of tuberculosis incidence. When variations between the counties in relevant environmental factors, namely capital, urbanization and overcrowding, were taken into account, a strong positive association remains between the prevalence of infected cattle and the risk of tuberculous infection in man, but the associations with tuberculous mortality and morbidity, though they remain negative, become weaker. It is suggested that the probable explanation of these findings is the long-term protection against adult infection with human tubercle bacilli conferred by bovine infection in childhood.

SummaryThe author, relying on documentary evidence, reminds the enormous extension of latent tuberculosis. The allergy mounts to 100 % for certain groups. He also proves the multiplication of the mesenteric tuberculosis which is so widespread among the people.On the other hand the cattle tuberculosis will be found everywhere and this is proved by statistics of England, the United States, Berlin, Holland, Ghent and Flanders. Cattle’s infection is always brought by bovin bacille type. Therefore it is no wonder that the cattle bacilles will be found with an alarming frequency in human food delivered by stables, namely butter and principally milk. The direct demonstration of cattle bacille (viz pratically alimentary) in the human tuberculosis was often carried out, for several cases of adenitis, meningitis and also for cases of long diseases.The bovin’s bacilles are much more frequent among the children than among the grown-up.Mutation of the bovin type turns to the human among the human pathology is conseque...

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Summary Two Caucasian patients with bovine tuberculous meningitis are described. Classical Mycobacterium bovis was isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid on both occasions. Despite the elimination of cattle tuberculosis in this country, reactivated primary disease due to the bovine tubercle bacillus may still occur.

Data on the past prevalence of tuberculous infection in cattle and the more recent prevalence of tuberculin reactors among school children have been analysed for a number of mural ural districts in England. It was found that the less the exposure to cattle tuberculosis, the lower was the percentage of reactors in school children, indicating that a substantial proportion of the tuberculin reactors among the children was infected from bovine sources. It is concluded that bovine type tuberculous infection of man has been sufficiently prevalent in England in the past to warrant further investigation of its significance in the epidemiology of human tuberculosis today.

The achievement which we all desire to result from our efforts in the tuberculosis campaign is the human control of this disease. Such control must apply to our whole country without demarcation of state, county or municipal lines. Any given unit of population occupying any given territory, no matter how small the unit, that can demonstrate the accomplished control of this disease will solve the problem for the whole nation. The adaptation of this demonstration, in the ultimate control, would be but the multiplication of the equipment necessary for each additional unit of population. Unfortunately, such a demonstration has not yet been accomplished for human tuberculosis, and we are still trying unproved methods on larger and smaller scales from many different angles by federal, state and local agencies. Perhaps the most significant single demonstration of the control of tuberculosis has been accomplished by Bernard Bang, in cattle tuberculosis for the