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Meta-Analysis
. 2021 Nov;68(7):704-718.
doi: 10.1111/zph.12868. Epub 2021 Jun 24.

Global prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis infections among human tuberculosis cases: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Hawult Taye  1   2 , Kassahun Alemu  2 , Adane Mihret  1 , James L N Wood  3 , Ziv Shkedy  2   4 , Stefan Berg  5 , Abraham Aseffa  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Global prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis infections among human tuberculosis cases: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Hawult Taye et al. Zoonoses Public Health. 2021 Nov.

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic communicable bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) species. M. tuberculosis is the main causative agent of human TB, and cattle are the primary host of Mycobacterium bovis; due to close interaction between cattle and humans, M. bovis poses a zoonotic risk. This review summarizes and estimates the prevalence of M. bovis infection among human cases. Studies reporting TB prevalence data that were published in English during 10 years from 20 April 2009 to 17 April 2019 were identified through search of PubMed and other sources. Quality of studies and risk of bias were assessed using standard tools for prevalence study reports. Characteristics of included studies and their main findings were summarized in tables and discussed with narrative syntheses. Meta-analysis was performed on 19 included studies, with a total of 7,185 MTBC isolates identified; 702 (9.7%) of them were characterized as of subspecies M. bovis, but there was a large prevalence difference between the studies, ranging from 0.4% to 76.7%. The genotyping-based studies reported significantly lower prevalence of zoonotic TB than did the studies based on older techniques. The overall pooled prevalence of M. bovis aggregated from all included studies was 12.1% of the total MTBC isolates, while the corresponding pooled figure from the 14 genotyping-based studies was only 1.4%. Generally, human M. bovis cases reported from different countries of the world suggest that the impact of zoonotic TB is still important in all regions. However, it was difficult to understand the true picture of the disease prevalence because of methodological differences. Future investigations on zoonotic TB should carefully consider these differences when evaluating prevalence results.

Keywords: Mycobacterium bovis; biochemical testing; genotyping; human TB; systematic review and meta-analysis.

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Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

None.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
PRISMA flow diagram shows the searching strategy and screening of eligible studies at different levels of the review process
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Findings of a meta-analysis generated from the full model showing the prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis (ES (95% CI)) stratified by genotyping- and conventional-based mycobacterial identification methods
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Meta-analysis findings of the random model that shows individual study estimates (ES (95% CI)) of genotyping-based studies and subtotal prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis across regions
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Meta-analysis findings of the random model that shows individual study estimates (ES (95% CI)) of genotyping-based studies and subtotal prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis with respect to site
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Funnel plots of standard error and precision used to assess any publication bias
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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