Prevalence of bovine tuberculosis in and around Ambagiorgies town smallholder dairy farms and assessment of farm owner’s awareness about the disease, North Gondar, Ethiopia

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted from October, 2013 to May, 2014 on 60 smallholder dairy farms in and around Ambagiorgies town, North Gondar, Ethiopia, using comparative intradermal tuberculin skin testing (CIDT) and questionnaire survey to determine the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis and awareness of cattle owners about the disease. A significant variation in prevalence (P) was observed in regard to herd size (χ2= 26.6, P 0.05) association was recorded between the presence of reactor cattle and history of human TB cases in a household. The fact that the history of human TB patients and reactor cattle were present in the same household suggests the transmission of mycobacterial species between cattle and their owners, while the awareness of these farmers about bovine TB and its transmission was generally poor. The current result underlines the importance of launching control strategy before the disease reaches its climax and pose great economic and public health hazard.