Policy Provisions for Bovine and Zoonotic Tuberculosis in Uganda

In the grand scheme of disease management and control, adequate epidemiological data underpin policy. It is therefore hardly surprising that Uganda does not have a specific policy for BTB control, nor for dealing with zoonotic TB because of the lack of sufficient information about BTB and zoonotic TB.

There are, however, regulations in the Animal Disease Act that determine how infectious diseases like BTB should be prevented and controlled (Ministry of Agriculture 2010). The irony about this act is that it instructs farmers and/or livestock handlers to isolate infected animals, but they do not have access to routine diagnostic tools. The only achievable component of this act is that of performing postmortem inspection to determine the presence of BTB in the Ugandan cattle population. This act has recently been supplemented by the revised Public Health Act of 2000 (Ministry of Agriculture 2010), which determines that only government- appointed inspectors should inspect all slaughtered animals to ensure their freedom from any form of TB. It is unfortunate that although Uganda has these acts in place, they do not contain all the requirements for BTB control as recommended by the OIE (2009). There are also challenges with traceability when a tuberculous carcass is found during abattoir inspection, as most cattle are not individually identifiable and cannot be traced to their herd of origin.

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