Future Challenges

The current diagnostic methods for M. bovis are too expensive and complicated to be financed and applied by the Ugandan animal industry, and the inability to diagnose the disease is the source of all the holes that we identified if our objective is to control disease caused by M.

Investment in developing less expensive, rapid, and efficient diagnostic tech­niques is required to improve our knowledge of the socioeconomic impact of BTB on Ugandan people and the country’s economy. Such studies will help to quantify the impact of BTB on the animal industry and the Ugandan economy at large. At a micro-economic level, such studies will reveal the health impact of zoonotic TB in Uganda measured by disability-adjusted life years (DALYS) and years of potential life lost (YPLL). Such data will not only highlight the problem and force people to become involved in finding relevant community-tailored solutions, but will also provide an opportunity for African problems to be addressed, and solved, by Africans.

If the WHO’s ambitious goal of elimination TB by 2035 (Mario 2014) is to be achieved, there is a dire need to determine the impact of zoonotic TB on the global TB control initiatives. Now, more than ever before, it is imperative to make a definitive diagnosis of TB in humans because, for the first time in 100 years of TB control and management, every single case of TB, regardless of the causative agent, matters. We therefore strongly believe that this requires attention and investment by both local and international stakeholders.

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