A case of miliary tuberculosis in a Holestein Fresian dairy cow, Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia

We report a case of miliary tuberculosis (TB) found in one of the commercial dairy farms in Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia. The case history of the cow indicated weight loss, emaciation and chronic cough. Antibiotic treatment was not successful and there was also repeated death of cows in the farm. Postmortem (PM) examination showed tuberculous lesions in the lung, liver, mediastinal lymphnodes, mesenteric lymphnodes, pleural cavity, reproductive tract, lymphnodes of the head and bone marrow suggesting miliary form of TB. This was confirmed by bacteriological examination and histopathology. The farm where the present case was reported is one of the dairy farms in Mekelle city that supplies milk to the community. As the pasteurization facility is weak in the area, it is suspected that this farm may serve as one of the major transmitters of TB in humans. The lack of control policy in the country worsens the occurrence and spread of TB in animals. In this case, the owner of the Farm was advised to conduct tuberculin skin testing and segregate TB positive cows. Moreover, the owner was advised that it is advantageous to slaughter the reactors under the supervision of the local veterinarian so as to reduce spread of bovine TB in the farm.Keywords: Bovine tuberculosis; Dairy cattle; Exotic; Mekelle; Miliary T

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL VALUES OF TRAVEL & TOURISM COMPETITIVENESS INDEX AND ITS PREDICTIVE POWERS ON TOURIST ARRIVALS IN AFRICA; PLS-SEM APPROACH

This study aimed to assess the explanatory power of the sub-indices and pillars of the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index on ITA taking Africa as a case. The study extended the epistemological articulations and empirical values of the TTCI by introducing ITA as a dependent variable. It took WEF's 7 years report on TTCI of 29 African economies. Results show that the predictive powers of half of TTCI Sub-indices as formative indicators to ITA are weak and negative. Analogously, the collinearity, validity, and reliability issues of sub-indices were substantially not resolved. These findings have implied that the TTCI has to articulate its predictive bearing before it can be accepted as an epistemologically and practically relevant concept that prescribes policy issues especially on the course of diagnosing the African Tourism ecosystem

Transcriptional Host Responses to Infection with <i>Streptococcus suis</i> in a Porcine Precision-Cut Lung Slice Model: Between-Strain Differences Suggest Association with Virulence Potential

Streptococcus suis is a porcine and zoonotic pathogen in the upper respiratory tract, expressing different capsular serotypes and virulence-associated factors. Given its genomic and phenotypic diversity, the virulence potential of S. suis cannot be attributed to a single factor. Since strong inflammatory response is a hallmark of S. suis infection, the objective of this study was to investigate the differences in transcriptional host responses to two serotype 2 and one serotype 9 strains. Both serotypes are frequently found in clinical isolates. We infected porcine precision-cut lung slices (PCLSs) with two serotype 2 strains of high (strain S10) and low (strain T15) virulence, and a serotype 9 strain 8067 of moderate virulence. We observed higher expression of inflammation-related genes during early infection with strains T15 and 8067, in contrast to infection with strain 10, whose expression peaked late. In addition, bacterial gene expression from infected PCLSs revealed differences, mainly of metabolism-related and certain virulence-associated bacterial genes amongst these strains. We conclude that the strain- and time-dependent induction of genes involved in innate immune response might reflect clinical outcomes of infection in vivo, implying rapid control of infection with less virulent strains compared to the highly virulent strain S10