Introduction
Tuberculosis is an infectious, chronic, and usually fatal disease caused by members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) that are often able to cross species barriers between humans and domestic and wild animals.
In wild animals, tuberculosis is primarily caused by spillover of Mycobacterium bovis infections from infected domestic cattle to free-ranging wildlife, while M. tuberculosis has long been known as, and still remains an important cause of death in captive wild animals in zoological collections worldwide, where close contact with humans facilitates its transmission to animals (Montali et al. 2001; de Lisle et al. 2001). Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been reported to cause generalized tuberculosis in a range of captive wildlife species. For more detailed information the reader is referred to recent literature focusing on tuberculosis in captive wildlife (Michel et al. 2013; Mikota et al. 2015; Miller and Lyashchenko 2015).A growing number of MTC species, other than M. bovis and M. tuberculosis, able to cause lesions in infected animals has been identified in free-ranging wildlife in Southern and Western Africa (van Helden et al. 2009). The “Dassie bacillus” has been reported in rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis) as early as 1960, and appears to have established itself in this species (Parsons et al. 2008). A “member of the animal- adapted lineage of the MTC” was reported in free-ranging suricates (Suricata
A. L. Michel (*)
Department Veterinary Tropical Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, Onderstepoort, South Africa e-mail: anita.michel@up.ac.za
P. D. van Helden
Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, South African MRC Centre for TB Research, DST NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Tuberculosis Research, Stellenbosch University, Tygerberg, South Africa e-mail: pvh@sun.ac.za
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Dibaba et al. (eds.), Tuberculosis in Animals: An African Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18690-6_5 suricatta) in the Kalahari Desert of the Northern Cape (South Africa), was later characterized as a new species, and was named M. suricattae (Parsons et al. 2013). A rare and slow-growing member of the antelope clade of the MTC, the “oryx bacillus,” was recently isolated from a free-ranging adult African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Gey van Pittius et al. 2012). Infection with M. mungi is considered to be an emerging disease, and it is the cause of a high death rate in free-ranging banded mongooses (Mungos mungo) living in close proximity to humans in northern Botswana (Alexander et al. 2010). In 2013, an MTC strain closely related to the human-associated lineage 6 (also known as M. africanum West Africa type 2) was isolated from a chimpanzee in Cote d’Ivoire (Coscolla et al. 2013). The gregarious social behavior common to all these species is the most likely reason for their ability to sustain tuberculosis (TB). The impact of these newly identified organisms on their hosts and their zoonotic potential is currently unknown. (See Chap. 6 for more detailed information about these mycobacterial species.)In this chapter, we collate the current knowledge about bovine tuberculosis (BTB) caused by M. bovis in free-ranging wildlife species in Africa.
5.2
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