A study on the prevalence of Bovine Tuberculosis in farmed dairy cattle in Himachal Pradesh
A study was conducted on 440 dairy cattle in six organized dairy farms in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India using tuberculin skin testing (TST) to determine the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis. An overall animal prevalence of 14.31% (63 of 440 animals) and a farm prevalence of 16.67% (1 of 6 farms) were recorded in 6 dairy farms by the TST.Of the six dairy farms studied, one of the farms showed prevalence of 34.42% (63/183). There were also marked differences in the prevalence of the disease within the breeds (pure bred and their crosses) and the different age groups.The findings were also corroborated with isolation of the organism and IFN-γ assay.The prevalence of bovine tuberculosis in one farm under study signifies potential health risk.