Introduction: In Tunisia, almost 77% of clinically and bacteriologically diagnosed cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) are zoonotic TB, caused by M. bovis. Although several studies have analyzed bovine TB in cattle in Tunisia, no study has evaluated the risk of transmission to humans in such an endemic country. We aimed to study the genetic diversity of M. bovis human isolates, to ascertain the causes of human EPTB infection by M. bovis and to investigate the distribution and population structure of this species in Tunisia.
Materials and methods: A total of 110 M. bovis isolates taken from patients with confirmed EPTB were characterized by spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR typing methods.
Results: Among the 15 spoligotypes detected in our study, 6 (SB0120, SB0121, SB2025, SB1200, SB1003 and SB0134) were the most prevalent (83.5%) of which SB0120, SB0121 and SB2025 were the most prevailing. MIRU-VNTR typing method showed a high genotypic and genetic diversity. The genetic differentiation based on MIRU-VNTR was significant between populations from South East (Tataouine, Medenine) and Central West (Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid, Kasserine) regions. Of note, 13/15 (86.7%) spoligotypes detected in our study were previously identified in cattle in Tunisia with different frequencies suggesting a peculiar ability of some genotypes to infect humans. Using combined spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR method, a high clustering rate of 43.9% was obtained. Our results underlined that human EPTB due to M. bovis was more commonly found in female gender and in young patients. Most of our patients, 66.4% (73/110) were raw milk or derivatives consumers, whereas 30.9% (34/110) patients would have contracted EPTB through contact with livestock. The findings suggest that the transmission of Zoonotic TB caused by M. bovis to humans mainly occurred by oral route through raw milk or derivatives.
Conclusion: Our study showed the urgent need of a better veterinary control with the implementation of effective and comprehensive strategies in order to reach a good protection of animals as well as human health.