Serodiagnosis of Tuberculosis in Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) in Southern India: A Latent Class Analysis
Autor: | Kithiganahalli Narayanaswamy Balaji, Jacob Varghese Cheeran, Raman Sukumar, David Abraham, Nandini Dendukuri, Shalu Verma-Kumar |
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Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2012 |
Předmět: |
Veterinary medicine
Tuberculosis Infectious Disease Control Animal Types Immunology Elephants India lcsh:Medicine Disease Large Animals Wildlife Microbiology Sensitivity and Specificity Serology Mycobacterium tuberculosis Elephas Tuberculosis diagnosis Seroepidemiologic Studies medicine Animals Serologic Tests Bovine Tuberculosis lcsh:Science Biology Immune Response Microbiology & Cell Biology Antigens Bacterial Multidisciplinary Centre for Ecological Sciences biology Zoonotic Diseases Captive elephants lcsh:R biology.organism_classification medicine.disease Antibodies Bacterial Immunity Humoral Host-Pathogen Interaction Emerging Infectious Diseases Infectious Diseases Veterinary Diseases Medicine Veterinary Science lcsh:Q Research Article |
Zdroj: | PLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 11, p e49548 (2012) PLoS ONE |
ISSN: | 2381-3652 |
Popis: | Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a causative agent of chronic tuberculosis disease, is widespread among some animal species too. There is paucity of information on the distribution, prevalence and true disease status of tuberculosis in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). The aim of this study was to estimate the sensitivity and specificity of serological tests to diagnose M. tuberculosis infection in captive elephants in southern India while simultaneously estimating sero-prevalence. Methodology/Principal Findings: Health assessment of 600 elephants was carried out and their sera screened with a commercially available rapid serum test. Trunk wash culture of select rapid serum test positive animals yielded no animal positive for M. tuberculosis isolation. Under Indian field conditions where the true disease status is unknown, we used a latent class model to estimate the diagnostic characteristics of an existing (rapid serum test) and new (four in-house ELISA) tests. One hundred and seventy nine sera were randomly selected for screening in the five tests. Diagnostic sensitivities of the four ELISAs were 91.3-97.6% (95% Credible Interval (CI): 74.8-99.9) and diagnostic specificity were 89.6-98.5% (95% CI: 79.4-99.9) based on the model we assumed. We estimate that 53.6% (95% CI: 44.6-62.8) of the samples tested were free from infection with M. tuberculosis and 15.9% (97.5% CI: 9.8 - to 24.0) tested positive on all five tests. Conclusions/Significance: Our results provide evidence for high prevalence of asymptomatic M. tuberculosis infection in Asian elephants in a captive Indian setting. Further validation of these tests would be important in formulating area-specific effective surveillance and control measures. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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