Mycobacteria cause major diseases including human tuberculosis, bovine tuberculosis and Johne’s disease. In livestock, the dominant species is M. bovis causing bovine tuberculosis (bTB), a disease of global zoonotic importance. In this study, we estimated the prevalence of Mycobacteria in slaughter cattle in Cameroon. A total of 2,346 cattle were examined in a cross-sectional study at four abattoirs in Cameroon. Up to three lesions per animal were collected for further study and a retropharyngeal lymph node was collected from a random sample of non-lesioned animals. Samples were cultured on Lowenstein Jensen media and the BACTEC MGIT 960 system, and identified using the Hain® Genotype kits. A total of 207/2,346 cattle were identified with bTB-like lesions, representing 4.0% (45/1,129), 11.3% (106/935), 23.8% (38/160) and 14.8% (18/122) of the cattle in the Bamenda, Ngaoundere, Garoua and Maroua abattoirs respectively. The minimum estimated prevalence of M. bovis was 2.8% (1.9–3.9), 7.7% (6.1–9.6), 21.3% (15.2–28.4) and 13.1% (7.7–20.4) in the four abattoirs respectively. One M. tuberculosis and three M. bovis strains were recovered from non-lesioned animals. The high prevalence of M. bovis is of public health concern and limits the potential control options in this setting without a viable vaccine as an alternative.

We describe the largest molecular epidemiological study of Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) in a sub-Saharan African country with higher spatial resolution providing new insights into bTB. Four hundred and ninety-nine samples were collected for culture from 201 and 179 cattle with and without bTB-like lesions respectively out of 2,346 cattle slaughtered at Bamenda, Ngaoundere, Garoua and Maroua abattoirs between 2012–2013. Two hundred and fifty-five M. bovis were isolated, identified and genotyped using deletion analysis, Hain® Genotype MTBC, spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR. African 1 was the dominant M. bovis clonal complex, with 97 unique genotypes including 19 novel spoligotypes representing the highest M. bovis genetic diversity observed in Africa to date. SB0944 and SB0953 dominated (63%) the observed spoligotypes. A third of animals with multiple lesions had multiple strain infections. Higher diversity but little evidence of recent transmission of M. bovis was more common in Adamawa compared to the North-West Region. The Adamawa was characterised by a high frequency of singletons possibly due to constant additions from an active livestock movement network compared to the North-West Region where a local expansion was more evident. The latter combined with population-based inferences suggest an unstable and stable bTB-endemic status in the North-West and Adamawa Regions respectively.