Volume 22, Number 2—February 2016
Dispatch
African Buffalo Movement and Zoonotic Disease Risk across Transfrontier Conservation Areas, Southern Africa
Table
Diagnostic results for bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, and Rift Valley fever in African buffalo populations sampled in Kruger National Park, South Africa, and on the northern bank of the Limpopo River, Sengwe Communal Land, Zimbabwe, 2010 and 2011*
Type of infection tested for† | No. positive/no. total |
||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Calf |
Subadult |
Adult |
All animals‡ | ||||||
M | F | M | F | M | F | ||||
Bovine tuberculosis | 0/4 | 0/5 | 2/11 | 4/25 | 0/9 | 2/23 | 8/77 (4/38) | ||
Brucellosis | 0/4 | 1/5 | 1/12 | 4/28 | 2/9 | 5/25 | 13/83 (0/38)§ | ||
Rift Valley fever | 0/4 | 0/5 | 0/12 | 1/31 | 1/9 | 3/28 | 5/89 (2/38) |
*Individuals and herds belong to the same population (see Figure 1, adult female home range). Calf, <2.5 y of age; subadult, 2.5–4.5 y; adult, >4.5 y.
†Laboratory tests used: for bovine tuberculosis, Gamma-interferon test and isolation; for brucellosis, Rose Bengal and Complement fixation tests; for Rift Valley fever, indirect ELISA test.
‡Published results (9) for the same diseases tested in the Gonarezhou National Park buffalo population in Zimbabwe are shown in parentheses.
§Difference between Kruger and Gonarezhou population results for brucellosis was significant by Fisher exact test for equality of proportion for small samples (p<0.02).
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