Postmortem examination of a wild Asian elephant at Rajiv Gandhi National Park, India, revealed nodular lesions, granulomas with central caseation, and acid-fast bacilli in the lungs. PCR and nucleotide sequencing confirmed the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This study indicates that wild elephants can harbor M. tuberculosis that can become fatal.

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A retrospective study on the epidemiology of foot and-mouth disease (FMD) in Karnataka, India between the years 1977 and 2012-13 based on the data collected through passive and active surveillance was undertaken. A total of 11,159 outbreaks with 0.271 million cases of FMD were recorded from 30 different revenue districts of Karnataka. There was a significant difference between the years for the annual incidence of FMD (P = \0.001, F = 19.10) and also between the months (P = \0.001, F = 4.22). Cattle and buffaloes were the predominant species affected being involved in all of the outbreaks reported. A significant correlation was observed between livestock density and the number of outbreaks reported (r = 0.70, p \ 0.02), and number of cases (r = 0.76, p \ 0.01) for all the agro-climatic zones. The Central dry zone (n = 2257, 19.89 %) reported the highest number of outbreaks followed by the Northern dry zone (n = 1881, 16.58 %) and the Southern transition zone (n = 1761, 15.52 %), and attack rates were concentrated in the North/Northeastern/Central dry and transition zones. A large majority of the outbreaks were caused by serotype O (64.04 %), followed by Asia 1 (19.87 %) and A (12.27 %). Serotype C was not reported since 1993 in the state. In recent years, serotype O has dominated (82.59 %), with the rest of the outbreaks being almost equally caused by A (9.01 %) and Asia 1 (8.40 %). The study highlights the significance of the O serotype and cattle as the main indicator species in the epidemiology of FMD in Karnataka, India. The findings from this study can be used as baseline epidemiological data for further research to identify endemic and epidemic areas for the development of a sustainable programme for the progressive control of FMD in the state of Karnataka as well as other endemic settings.

We report the serotyping of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) and Pasteurella multocida from Indian gaurs which were concurrently infected with foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and haemorrhagic septicaemia. Bannerghatta biological park (BBP), a national park located in the outskirts of Bengaluru city, Karnataka, India, is bordered by several villages. These villages witnessed massive outbreaks of FMD which spread rapidly to the herbivores at BBP. Post-mortem was conducted on carcasses of two Indian gaurs that died with symptoms of FMD. The salient gross findings included extensive vesicular lesions on the tongue, gums, cheeks, upper palate and hooves. Haemorrhagic tracheitis and ecchymotic haemorrhages on the heart were characteristic. The vesicular lesions of oral cavity were positive for 'O' type of FMD virus by sandwich enzyme-linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA). The heart blood and spleen samples yielded growth of pure cultures of P. multocida. The isolates were typed as P. multocida type B using KTSP61 and KTT72 primers yielding specific amplicons of 620 bp. The phylogenetic analysis of the isolates was carried by sequencing of 1.4-Kbp nucleotides on the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene of the isolates.