Background: Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) is a contagious chronic and debilitating disease of cattle that can infect humans, other domestic animal and some wild life. Assosa district is one of the remote settings in Ethiopia where information on neglected tropical disease like BTB is not well documented. Hence this study aimed to estimate the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis at Assosa District, Western Ethiopia.
Results: For the current study, 224 dairy cows were sampled and screened for bovine tuberculosis. Among which 18 (8.04%) cows were found positive for bovine tuberculosis where as the rest were negative for the screening test. The effects of different associated risk factors (like age, breed type, and body condition score) for the occurrence of BTB were investigated. The difference in reactivity to the CIDT test among the study participants in different age groups, breed types and body condition were found statistically significant (P-value = 0.034, 0.002 and 0.000) respectively showing higher risk of BTB in older animals when compared to the younger ones (OR=6.42, 95% CI, .01-0.20), exotic breeds (OR=7.49, 95% CI, 2.10-26.78) and poor body condition scored animals (OR=16.75, 95% CI, 5.41-51.8).
Conclusion: The prevalence reported in the current study only using CIDT test revealed that BTB is present and is well-established in small holder dairy farms in the district. The farm owners in the study areas are usually in close contact with their animals and also consume raw milk regularly which may predispose them for the disease. Thus, the livestock agency of the district and the researchers should give awareness creation to the farm owners on the relevance of screening test for BTB before purchasing the animals. Moreover, further detailed epidemiological as well as molecular studies should be done to investigate the link between bovine and human tuberculosis in the study area in order to design appropriate strategic prevention and control measures.