Hindawi Publishing Corporation Veterinary Medicine International Volume 2012, Article ID 869146, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/869146 Research Article Tuberculosis in Goats and Sheep in Afar Pastoral Region of Ethiopia and Isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from Goat Gezahegne Mamo Kassa,1, 2, 3 Fekadu Abebe,3 Yalelet Worku,2, 4 Mengistu Legesse,1, 3 Girmay Medhin,1 Gunnar Bjune,3 and Gobena Ameni1 1 Aklilu Lemma Institute of Pathobiology, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 34, Debre Zeit, Ethiopia 3 Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Health and Society, Department of Community Medicine, International Community Health, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1130, Blindern N-0318 Oslo, Norway 4 Afar Pastoral Agricultural Bureau, Afar Pastoral Region, P.O. Box 73, Semera, Ethiopia Correspondence should be addressed to Gezahegne Mamo Kassa, g.m.kassa@studmed.uio.no Received 3 February 2012; Accepted 21 May 2012 Academic Editor: Michael D. Welsh Copyright © 2012 Gezahegne Mamo Kassa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. A cross sectional study was conducted on 2231 small ruminants in four districts of the Afar Pastoral Region of Ethiopia to investigate the epidemiology of tuberculosis in goats and sheep using comparative intradermal tuberculin skin test, postmortem examination, mycobacteriological culture and molecular typing methods. The overall animal prevalence of TB in small ruminants was 0.5% (95% CI: 0.2%–0.7%) at ≥4 mm and 3.8% (95% CI: 3%–4.7%) at cutoﬀ ≥2 mm. The herd prevalence was 20% (95% CI: 12–28%) and 47% (95% CI: 37–56%) at ≥4 mm and ≥2 mm cut-oﬀ points, respectively. The overall animal prevalence of Mycobacterium avium complex infection was 2.8% (95% CI: 2.1–3.5%) and 6.8% (95% CI: 5.8–7.9%) at ≥4 mm and ≥2 mm cut- oﬀ points, respectively. Mycobacteriological culture and molecular characterization of isolates from tissue lesions of tuberculin reactor goats resulted in isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (SIT149) and non-tuberculosis mycobacteria as causative agents of tuberculosis and tuberculosis-like diseases in goats, respectively. The isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in goat suggests a potential transmission of the causative agent from human and warrants further investigation in the role of small ruminants in epidemiology of human tuberculosis in the region. 1. Background Ethiopia has one of the largest resources of goats and sheep among African countries, with an estimated number of 21.9 million goats and 25.9 million sheep [1]. Goats and sheep contribute signiﬁcantly to the economy and food security of the poor farmers in the country. About 73% of the national goat population and 25% of the sheep population are found in the lowland pastoral areas of the country [2]. In pastoralist area, goats and sheep are mainly utilized for milk and meat production and generate income to the owner. In spite of the large population and potential use of small ruminants, the production system is aﬀected by feed shortage, poor genetic makeup of the animals, and wide spread occurrence of livestock diseases such as tuberculosis which has both economic and public health signiﬁcance to the communities. TB in goat and sheep is caused by members of Mycobac- terium tuberculosis complex predominantly by Mycobac- terium bovis and Mycobacterium caprae [3–14] and few caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis [15, 16]. Epidemiolog- ical studies indicated that tuberculosis in goat and sheep has a wide global distribution and has been reported in various countries of the world including New Zealand, Sudan, Spain, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Italy, Algeria, Ethiopia [3–17]. In Ethiopia, bovine TB has been known to be endemic in cattle; however, the status of TB in goats and sheep has not been well studied in spite of their close contact with cattle. Few studies carried out so far in central highland Ethiopia