Tuberculosis in swine co-infected with Mycobacterium avium subsp. hominissuis and Mycobacterium bovis in a cluster from Argentina

SOLEDAD BARANDIARAN; PEREZ ANDRES; GIOFFRÉ; MARCELA MARTINEZ VIVOT; ANGEL CATALDI; MARTIN JOSE ZUMARRAGA

EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION.

CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2014

0950-2688

Summary Little is known about the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) infection in swine in Argentina. We characterized the epidemiological dynamics of Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection in a swine population of Argentina using molecular tools and spatial analysis techniques. A total of 196 isolates were obtained from TB-like lesions (n=200). The isolates were characterized using PCR with M. bovis (IS6110)-positive (n=160) and M. avium (IS1245)-positive (n=20) results. Furthermore, 16 samples (10.2%) were positive to both M. bovis and M. avium. This finding suggests co-infection at the animal level. MAC-positive isolates (n=36) were classified as M. avium subsp. avium (MAA) (n=30) and M. avium subsp. hominissuis (MAH) (n=6), which resulted in 5 genotypes when they were typed using MIRU-VNTR. One significant (P=0.017) spatial cluster of genotypes was detected, in which the proportion of MAH isolates was larger than the expected under the null hypothesis of even distribution of genotypes. These results demonstrated that the proportion of TB cases owing to M. avium in pigs in Argentina was larger than in early studies. The proportion of M. bovis-MAC co-infections was also higher than in previous reports. These results provide valuable information on the epidemiology of MAC infection in swine in Argentina.