Published Paper Details:

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is one of the most widespread chronic infectious diseases of zoonotic importance, causing significant economic losses in animal production. However, little epidemiological information is available on the disease in dairy cows in southern Ethiopia in general and the study area in particular. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted between March 2022 and May 2023 to assess public awareness and examine the prevalence and associated risk factors of bTB in the city of Wolkite in southern Ethiopia. A total of 32 herds with 196 dairy cows were tested using the Single Intradermal Comparative Cervical Tuberculin (SICCT) test. To identify potential risk factors for bTB positivity in cattle, generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) and generalized linear models (GLM) were used to analyze the risk factors at the animal and herd level, respectively. An overall prevalence of 18.37% (95% CI: 13.57-24.38) and 46.87% (95% CI: 30.87-63.55) bTB was found at the animal and herd levels in the study areas. In this study, bTB positivity at the animal level was significantly associated with age (OR = 6.6, 95% CI: 2.19-37.02) and source of animal (OR = 3.1, 95% CI: 1.24-8.12). At the herd level, the analysis showed that management condition (OR = 4.7, 95% CI: 1.12-19.91), stocking density (OR = 6.3, 95% CI: 1.96-20.24), and new cattle introductions (OR = 2.8, 95% CI: 1.01-8.18) were significantly associated with bTB status. Of all dairy farm owners and workers surveyed, only 25.92% had information about bovine tuberculosis; of them, 32.14% were aware of the zoonotic importance of the disease. More than 69% of respondents said they prefer consuming raw milk. Therefore, animal owners and stakeholders should be made aware of the cause, the transmission routes and their effects on animals and humans.