Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a disease of cattle that represents a risk to public health and causes severe economic losses to the livestock industry. Recently, one of the strategies recommended for reducing the prevalence of the disease in animals is the use of the BCG vaccine, alone or in combination with proteins. It has been shown that the vaccine elicits a strong immune response, downsizes the number of animals with visible lesions, and reduces the rate of infection as well as the bacillary count. This paper, based on scientific evidence, makes suggestions about some practical vaccination alternatives that can be used in infected herds to reduce bTB prevalence, considering BCG strains, vaccine doses, routes of application, and age of the animals. Our conclusion is that vaccination is a promising alternative to be included in current control programs in underdeveloped countries to reduce the disease burden.

Rabies is a zoonotic disease that affects livestock worldwide. The distribution of rabies is highly correlated with the distribution of the vampire bat Desmodus rotundus, the main vector of the disease. In this study, climatic, topographic, livestock population, vampire distribution and urban and rural zones were used to estimate the risk for presentation of cases of rabies in Mexico by co- Kriging interpolation. The highest risk for the presentation of cases is in the endemic areas of the disease, i.e. the States of Yucatán, Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, Nayarit and Baja California Sur. A transition zone for cases was identified across northern Mexico, involving the States of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Durango. The variables topography, vampire distribution, bovine population and rural zones are the most important to explain the risk of cases in livestock. This study provides robust estimates of risk and spread of rabies based on geostatistical methods. The information presented should be useful for authorities responsible of public and animal health when they plan and establish strategies preventing the spread of rabies into rabies-free regions of México.

Attempts to improve the immune response and efficacy of vaccines against tuberculosis in cattle, goats, and other animal species have been the focus of research in this field during the last two decades. Improving the vaccine efficacy is essential prior to running long-lasting and expensive field trials. Studies have shown that vaccine protocols utilizing boosting with proteins improve the vaccine efficacy. The use of polymers such as chitosan and PolyLactic-co-Glycolic Acid (PLGA) improves the immune response against different diseases by improving the interaction of antigens with the cellular immune system and modulating the host immune response. This study shows that the prime BCG vaccination, boosted with a culture filtrate protein (CFP), alone or in combination with chitosan and PolyLactic-co-Glycolic Acid (PLGA), have the potential to reduce tuberculosis (TB) dissemination by reducing the number of animals with lesions, the number of lesions per animal, and the size of the lesions in vaccinated animals, compared with those not vaccinated or those vaccinated with BCG alone. The vaccinated groups showed significantly higher Interferon-γ levels in the blood compared to the control, nonvaccinated group after vaccination, after boosting, and after the challenge with the wild-type Mycobacterium bovis strain.

La tuberculosis bovina es una enfermedad infecto-contagiosa, que ocasiona severas pérdidas económicas directas o indirectas como limitaciones en la movilización y comercialización de animales y sus productos. En México, el control de la enfermedad se basa en la “prueba y sacrificio”, donde los animales reactores son enviados a rastro. Una alternativa para el control es la vacunación con BCG, la cual ya se ha probado en condiciones experimentales, demostrando una eficacia mayor al 60% sin embargo, existe la duda de que micobacterias ambientales enmascaran dicha eficacia. El objetivo de este trabajo fue descartar la presencia de micobacterias ambientales a través de la detección de IFN-g en respuesta a los antígenos PPD-bovis y PPD-avium. A partir de muestras sanguíneas de animales vacunados y no vacunados con BCG-Phipps y posteriormente desafiados a una cepa de campo de M. bovis, se obtuvo un promedio general de respuesta de IFN-g, el cual fue significativamente superior cuando el estímulo se hizo con PPD-bovis que con PPD-avium, por lo que podemos concluir que las micobacterias ambientales no tienen influencia sobre la respuesta a la vacunación.