Cross-Sectional Study and Comparison of Different Diagnostic Methods ofBovine Tuberculosis in Gondar Elfora Abattoir, Ethiopia

Background: The prevalence of bovine tuberculosis is high in developing countries due to lack of awareness, good diagnostic methods and prevention strategies. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis and compare the efficacy of different procedures of diagnosis. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted at Gondar Elfora abattoir from December, 2005 to June, 2006. To this effect, comparison has been made between the detailed postmortem examination and routine meat inspection procedures with gold standard culture result. Result: Out of 402 animals examined at slaughter, 15.9% were diagnosed with gross tuberculous lesions by detailed laboratory examination. Routine abattoir inspection detected only 2.9% of the tuberculous cattle. From 64 cattle considered tuberculous, 10 show growth in Lowenstein-Jensen. The average number of lesions per infected cattle was 1.6% and 55.5% of cattle with tuberculous lesions possessed single lesion. All the traits (including sex, age and body condition score) measured in relation to tuberculous lesions did not show a statistically significant difference among the categories. The sensitivity of routine meat inspection was 18.8% with detailed postmortem examination and 30% with culture in comparison with 83.3% specificity. There was a poor agreement (k=0.18) between routine meat inspection and detailed postmortem examination procedures. Similarly, a poor agreement (k=0.12) was obtained between routine meat inspection procedure and culture result. Conclusion: Relatively higher prevalence was recorded, and there is a need to improve the sensitivity of routine abattoir inspection procedures to diagnose tuberculous.