Prevalence of Bovine Tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis)

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic infectious and contagious zoonotic disease of domestic animals, wild animals and humans. The disease occurs in a wide range of mammalian species and therefore, poses a public health threat. It also results in considerable economic loss due to animal production losses and abattoir condemnation of infected carcasses during meat inspection of slaughtered animals. This study was aimed at determining the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis in slaughtered cattle, based on Post-Mortem (PM) meat inspection, Ziehl-Neelsen staining (ZN) and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) techniques as well as the public health awareness of abattoir personnel in some Local Government Areas in Bauchi State, Northeastern, Nigeria. A cross-sectional abattoir based-study was conducted on 800 cattle slaughtered in the Northern, Central and Southern zonal abattoirs of Bauchi State, Nigeria, from June to August 2013. A total of 150 structured close-ended questionnaires were administered to abattoir personnel to assess their level of awareness of bTB, and personnels¿ inclusion criteria was based on their compliance and punctuality to work.