Download or read book Tuberculosis in Wild and Domestic Animals in South Africa written by Anita Luise Michel and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bovine tuberculosis is an endemic disease with a low prevalence in South African cattle. This is mostly the result of a national bovine tuberculosis control scheme which has been in place for nearly 40 years and has prevented outbreaks from spreading and causing large-scale losses, thereby also minimising the risk in view of human health. However, with the establishment of African buffalo as a successful wildlife maintenance host a new, yet undetermined risk factor has been introduced. It poses an entirely new challenge on national and provincial authorities to meet the 'fit for purpose' principle in terms of reducing economic losses but also the potentially negative impact on conservation efforts and, most of all, to protect human health and livelihoods. There is a need to shift the focus of bovine tuberculosis control from an exclusively cattle based to an integrated strategy, which takes into consideration the wildlife reservoir and the added risk of Mycobacterium bovis transmission between cattle and buffalo populations. In order to justify such a change in strategy, data regarding the epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis in wildlife reservoirs need to be available to underpin the interdependence of bovine tuberculosis in livestock and wildlife. This thesis describes the establishment of a set of molecular tools for researching the epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis in both livestock and wildlife and their crucial contribution to insight in the genetic diversity of M. bovis in South Africa. Furthermore it was demonstrated beyond doubt that spillover of M. bovis from cattle to wildlife has occurred and revealed important clues on the course of the epidemic within the Kruger National Park by intra- and interspecies spread of one dominant M. bovis strain.