Transmission dynamics and elimination potential of zoonotic tuberculosis in morocco

by Mahamat Fayiz Abakar, Hind Yahyaoui Azami, Philipp Justus Bless, Lisa Crump, Petra Lohmann, Mirjam Laager, Nakul Chitnis, Jakob Zinsstag Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) is an endemic zoonosis in Morocco caused byMycobacterium bovis, which infects many domestic animals and is transmitted to humans through consumption of raw milk or from contact with infected animals. The prevalence of BTB in Moroccan cattle is estimated at 18%, and 33% at the individual and the herd level respectively, but the humanM.bovis burden needs further clarification. The current control strategy based on test and slaughter should be improved through local context adaptation taking into account a suitable compensation in order to reduce BTB prevalence in Morocco and decrease the disease burden in humans and animals. We established a simple compartmental deterministic mathematical model for BTB transmission in cattle and humans to provide a general understanding of BTB, in particular regarding transmission to humans. Differential equations were used to model the different pathways between the compartments for cattle and humans. Scenarios of test and slaughter were simulated to determine the effects of varying the proportion of tested animals (p) on the time to elimination of BTB (individual animal prevalence of less than one in a thousand) in cattle and humans. The time to freedom from disease ranged from 75 years for p = 20% to 12 years for p = 100%. For p> 60% the time to elimination was less than 20 yea...
Source: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases - Category: Tropical Medicine Authors: Source Type: research