A cross sectional study was conducted on 906 apparently healthy camels slaughtered at Akaki and Metehara abattoirs to investigate the pathology of camel tuberculosis (TB) and characterize its causative agents using postmortem examination, mycobacteriological culturing, and multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR), region of difference-4 (RD4)-based PCR and spoligotyping. The prevalence of camel TB was 10.04% (91/906) on the basis of pathology and it was significantly higher in females (χ2 = 4.789; P = 0.029). The tropism of TB lesions was significantly different among the lymph nodes (χ2 = 22.697; P = 0.002) and lung lobes (χ2 = 17.901; P = 0.006). Mycobacterial growth was observed in 34% (31/91) of camels with grossly suspicious TB lesions. Upon further molecular characterization using multiplex PCR, 68% (21/31) of the colonies showed a positive signal for the genus Mycobacterium, of which two were confirmed Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) by RD4 deletion typing. Further characterization of the two M. bovis at strains level revealed that one of the strains was SB0133 while the other strain was new and had not been reported to the M. bovis database prior to this study. Hence, it has now been reported to the database, and designated as SB1953. In conclusion, the results of the present study have shown that the majority of camel TB lesions are caused by mycobacteria other than Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. And hence further identification and characterization of these species would be useful towards the efforts made to control TB in camels.

A study was conducted on 393 apparently healthy exotic and local chickens reared at different management systems in eastern Ethiopia in order to determine the sero-prevalence of Salmonella Gallinarum and Salmonella Pullorum. To achieve this objective, blood samples were collected and the expressed sera were used from the selected chickens for antibody detection. The samples were from Haramaya University (309 chickens) and Dire Dawa (84 chickens). Subsequently, serum slide agglutination test was employed. Based on this, the overall prevalence of Salmonella Gallinarum and Salmonella Pullorum was 125/393 (31.8%). The prevalence of each farm was 95 (30.7%) Haramaya University farm, 13 (32.5%) Dire Dawa University farm and 17 (38.6%) local breeds of Dire Dawa. Moreover, the study has recorded higher prevalence in back yard chickens as compared to chickens reared at intensive farms. However, associated risk factors have not been found statistically significant at (P value < 0.05). In conclusion, the present study revealed Salmonella Gallinarum and Salmonella Pullorum were prevalent in both production systems. Therefore, further epidemiological investigations on these pathogens and implementation of control measures are mandatory.

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