Improved surveillance of zoonotic Mycobacteria through rapid direct detection and genotyping in livestock, wildlife, and their environment from low-resource areas in South Africa.

Recent studies in Africa and India (countries with high TB- and HIV-burdens) reported increased frequency of zoonotic tuberculosis (zTB) in humans caused by other members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) like M. orygis, indicating that M. bovis infection may be an inadequate proxy for zTB.

Similarly, nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) lung disease in people is more frequently reported in Africa because of environmental NTM like M. avium complex.

NTM are naturally resistant to various drugs commonly used to treat MTBC infection and are often indistinguishable from MTBC when conventional MTBC “specific” immunological tests are used in humans and animals.

Consequently, the management and treatment of infected patients are substantially different and complicated by the absence of appropriate culture-independent tests for the combined detection and differentiation of MTBC and NTM.

We hypothesize that zoonotic pathogens like M. orygis and M. avium complex are more abundant in livestock, their environments and nearby wildlife than previously thought, especially in areas with immunocompromised people, leading to potentially high transmission risk interfaces.

The goal is to develop culture-independent detection and genotyping tests to enhance zoonotic Mycobacteria spp. detection and differentiation directly from livestock specimens collected from low-resource areas, their environment and near-by wildlife reservoirs.