Short Article
Salisu Ibrahim
Abstract
The study explain a case of transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) infection of a man with cattle on a farm in Gombe state, northeast Nigeria. M. tb was isolated from the bronchial lymph nodes of a 2-year-old heifer which responded strongly positive to the intradermal caudal fold tuberculin test but showed no gross pathological lesions at slaughter. The cattle assistant reported to hospital sick and was diagnosed smear sputum positive and he died at the time when the heifer was diagnosed as M. tb infected. The owner’s sputum and the heifer’s bronchial lymph nodes were all cultured on Lowenstein Jensen media containing both pyruvate and glycerol. The isolates obtained were Ziehl Neelsen stained in order to obtained smear positives. The smear positive isolates were subjected to Bioline (SD TB Ag MPT64 Rapid) assay to differentiate them in to Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) and environmental Mycobacterium. The MTBC were more subjected to PCR technique with GenoType MTBC technique to differentiate them into their various species. It was found that both the isolates from the man as well as that of the heifer were M. tuberclosis species, it was then concluded that there was a possibility of an anthropozoonotic transmission. Further studies using VNTR and spoligotyping is herby suggested