Bovine TB papers spotlight surveillance gaps in Mexico and Latin America

Bovine tuberculosis is back in focus in Latin America after a new review in Veterinary Sciences framed the disease as a neglected zoonosis in Mexico and the wider region, despite its long-standing effects on cattle production and human health. The authors argue that Mycobacterium bovis continues to circulate where surveillance, food safety controls, and public health follow-up are uneven, especially in emerging economies. A newly published Preventive Veterinary Medicine meta-analysis adds weight to that concern, finding that prevalence estimates from 2020 to 2024 vary markedly depending on which diagnostic tools and herd-level assumptions are used. (mdpi.com)

That message lands in a region where bovine TB is hardly new, but still unresolved. APHIS says the U.S.-Mexico Binational Committee for Tuberculosis was created in 1993 to support a coordinated eradication effort and facilitate cattle trade, and that its work helped shape Mexico’s National Campaign against Bovine Tuberculosis, which has been in force since 1996. The trade angle remains important: APHIS continues to classify Mexican regions by bovine TB prevalence thresholds, with different levels tied to disease status and import requirements. (aphis.usda.gov)

The new Veterinary Sciences review emphasizes that available molecular evidence from Latin America is not evenly distributed. According to the paper, much of the published dataset comes from a limited number of Mexican states, including Baja California, Hidalgo, Querétaro, and other central dairy areas, which may limit how well current findings represent the broader region. The authors argue that One Health coordination among veterinarians, physicians, and food authorities is needed to improve early detection, trace infection sources, and target interventions in farmers, consumers, and rural communities. (mdpi.com)

The companion meta-analysis in Preventive Veterinary Medicine points to a practical challenge for field veterinarians and regulators: the apparent burden of M. bovis can shift depending on whether surveillance relies on skin testing, culture, PCR, or other methods, and on herd-level characteristics included in the analysis. In other words, prevalence figures may reflect surveillance design as much as underlying biology. That matters in regions where policy, movement controls, and external confidence in disease status depend on consistent interpretation of testing data. (sciencedirect.com)

Broader public health sources support the zoonotic concern. CDC says M. bovis can infect people and that exposure is often linked to unpasteurized dairy products, while APHIS notes transmission can also occur through aerosol exposure, contaminated instruments, and spillover involving wildlife. CDC’s 2024 U.S. surveillance data continue to track M. bovis separately, underscoring that the pathogen still matters at the human-animal interface, even in countries with stronger control systems. (cdc.gov)

There are also signs that officials are still actively recalibrating control efforts in Mexico. SENASICA previously reported that 86.23% of national territory had reached a bovine TB prevalence below 0.5%, placing those regions in the eradication phase, and more recent reporting indicates APHIS reviews of bovine TB status were planned for several Mexican states in 2025 and 2026. While those figures should be interpreted cautiously because regional status can change over time, they show the disease remains operationally important for animal health authorities and exporters. (gob.mx)

Why it matters: For veterinarians, this is a reminder that bovine TB is not just a legacy disease or a trade compliance issue. It sits at the intersection of herd testing, milk safety, slaughter surveillance, wildlife interfaces, and human exposure risk, especially where raw dairy consumption persists or diagnostic capacity is uneven. For mixed animal, food animal, and public health veterinarians, the bigger issue may be comparability: if prevalence estimates are heavily influenced by test choice and surveillance design, then benchmarking progress across regions becomes harder, and underdetection becomes easier to miss. (sciencedirect.com)

What to watch: The next signals to follow are whether Mexico and regional partners expand molecular surveillance, update dairy-herd control strategies, or align veterinary and human health reporting more closely under a One Health framework; WHO’s March 24, 2026 call for a stronger One Health business case around zoonotic TB suggests this issue may draw more policy attention, but translating that into field diagnostics, surveillance funding, and measurable control gains will take time. (mdpi.com)