Bovine Tuberculosis in Abbassia & El-Minia chest Hospitals

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that human Tuberculosis incidence and death for 1990 to 1999 will be 88 million and 30 million respectively, with most cases in developing countries. Zoonotic TB (caused by mycobacterium bovis) is present in animals in most developing countries where Surveillance and control activities are often inadequate or unavailable; therefore, many epidemiologic and public health aspects of the infection remain largely unknown.

The reported high incidence of bovine TB in Africa and especially Egypt, has stimulated us to search for tuberculous cases caused by M bovis among tuberculous patients in the Abbassia and El-Minia chest hospitals as follow:

75 tuberculous patients with +ve history of direct contact with animals such as butchers, animal feeders, and rural workers were selected from the Abbassia and El-Minia chest hospitals. They were subjected to, Case history taking, X-ray films inspection to estimate the extent of the disease, and according to which was classified into mild, moderately advanced, and far advanced.

Sputum samples were subjected to the following examinations: • Direct microscopical examination for the presence of acid fast bacilli using Z-N staining. • Culture on Lowenstein-Jensen medium. • Colonies grown on cultures were subjected for oxyR all el e specific PCR technique for differentiation between M TB and M bovis.

Results:

: Males patients represented 91% (68 patients), while female patients represented 9%.

: The highest incidence of pulmonary TB was observed among patients above the age of 40 (45 cases) with the percentage of 60%, between 20-40 years (26 cases) with the percentage of 35%, the lowest incidence was among patients below the age of 20 (4 cases) with the percentage of 5%.

: Inspecting X-ray films revealed that mild cases (13 cases) representing 17%, moderately advanced cases, (43 cases) representing 57%, while far advanced cases (19 cases) with a percentage of 25%.

: Direct microscopical examination of sputum samples using Z-N staining was positive for 97% of samples. : Cultures on Lowenstein-Jensen medium were positi ve for 93% of samples. : oxyR allele specific PCR tests were negative for all samples. All cultures were identified as M TB and non of them was M bovis.