WildLife Group
of the SAVA
global and local public health and economies. Leading
drivers of infectious disease emergence in humans
from wildlife include anthropogenic pressures such
as land use change, food production systems, and
trade and travel. These complex drivers require
broad and novel approaches to predicting and
preventing disease emergence. A multisectoral or One
Health approach that considers the human-animal-
environment links can promote synergies among
public health, veterinary and medical professions
with other disciplines. For example, wildlife health
and pathogen surveillance can allow for more
proactive identification of risks for zoonotic pathogen
emergence and transmission, and mapping of disease
hotspots and disease forecasting can help inform
areas of greatest risk to guide resource allocation
for prevention efforts. Ecological and evolutionary
perspectives can provide insight on pathogen ecology
to guide control strategies, and social scientists
can help identify factors that lead to practices that
increase or decrease disease transmission risk.
The prevalence of tuberculosis
in domesticated African elephant
(Loxodonta africana) and their
handlers in the Victoria Falls and
Livingstone area
Hanyire T.G. 1,2 , Foggin C. ³, Miller M.⁴, van Kooten
P.⁵, Morar-Leather D.1, Rutten V. 1,5 and Michel A.1
1
Department Veterinary Tropical Diseases, Faculty
of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria,
Onderstepoort, South Africa, e-mail:tghanyire@gmail.
com; 2 Department of Veterinary Field Services, Wildlife
Veterinary Unit, Harare, Zimbabwe; 3 Victoria Falls
Wildlife Trust, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe; ⁴Stellenbosch
University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences;
5
Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology,
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, the
Netherlands
Rationale: Tuberculosis (Tb) in elephants is a chronic
disease, most often caused by M. tuberculosis,
and infected animals show little or no clinical signs
26
until the disease is in its advanced stages. There are
currently no validated diagnostic assays for Tb in
elephants and those currently used appear to have
suboptimal sensitivity or specificity. This urges for
the establishment of an affordable and sensitive
diagnostic algorithm able to detect Tb in elephants at
an early stage.
Objectives: To determine the presence or absence of
tuberculosis in the elephant population under study
usi