Rabbit Tuberculosis

Rabbit Tuberculosis closely resembles tuberculosis found in humans. Since the animal is highly fragile it is susceptible to all types of tuberculosis. It includes bovine, human and avian.

Tuberculosis has remained a global public health problem for quite a long time. Delicate animals like rabbits too receive it due to cavitary pulmonary lesions. Therefore, it becomes indispensable for rabbit breeders to have adequate knowledge on all forms of rabbit diseases.

The rabbit is experimentally susceptible to all forms of tuberculosis, bovine, human and avian, but the bovine form is most commonly found, although the disease is rare. It has greatly decreased in incidence, due probably to the fact that milk is now much less frequently feel to domestic rabbits, and such milk as is fed is likely to be free of the bacillus. In the acute form often no symptoms are present before death, but in the chronic form there is loss of condition and appetite, weakness and usually diarrhea. Breathing may be labored and a cough may develop.

Diagnosis is difficult and differentiation from pseudo-tuberculosis equally so. Consequently laboratory diagnosis should be sought in cases of doubt. Infection arises from food and water contaminated by tuberculosis animals and birds, and very occasionally from an infected attendant. Control is therefore obvious, but there is no treatment.

TB in rabbits is usually difficult to diagnose because its symptoms are not prominently visible. As a result laboratory analysis and proper diagnosis becomes important.

Symptoms of Tuberculosis (TB) in rabbits:

The symptoms of TB in rabbit are more or less similar to humans. A close monitoring of each and every rabbit helps to understand them. These are:

• Flu like illness
• Loss of condition and appetite
• Night sweats, weight loss and general weakness
• Dry cough with blood-stained sputum
• Restlessness due to constant chest pain
• Shortness of breath

Rabbit model of tuberculosis:

The rabbit model of tuberculosis is popular for its assessment of inbred and outbred New Zealand White rabbits infected by aerosol with either Mycobacterium tuberculosis Erdman or H37Rv strain. During the experiment, the infections with either strains lead to large pulmonary tubercles as compared to the outbred rabbits.

When the result was compared with histologic comparison of lung granulomas from outbred rabbits, those from inbred rabbits exhibited caseous necrosis, bacilli, and epithelioid cells. Delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) responses to intradermal tuberculin were considerably lesser while the peritoneal macrophages from uninfected inbred rabbits produced much less tumor necrosis factor than the outbred rabbits.

It was concluded that the inbred rabbits were more prone to tuberculosis than their outbred counterparts as it had a fragile ability to restrain the disease, resulting in larger tubercles than those in outbred rabbits.

Treatment and medicines for rabbit Tuberculosis:

Vaccines for rabbit Tuberculosis are given as per the specific antibody applications with which the antibody reacts. Commonly given medicines are: Immunohistochemistry-P, Immunohistochemistry-Fr, Immunohistochemistry-P, ELISA, S-ELISA, Western Blotting, IF, IHC-P, Immunohistochemistry (Frozen), Immunohistochemistry (Paraffin), IHC-Fr, IHC-P, etc.

Tubercle count method:

Tubercle count method is popularly applied to asses TB vaccine. It was developed by Lurie in 1952. This method gives an idea as to how many tubercle bacilli must be inhaled to generate an evident form of the disease. It helps to measure the vaccine’s ability to prevent immediate and enduring pulmonary tuberculosis. In rabbit, five week tubercles caused by human type bacilli take months to cure. But in humans, such tubercles take more months to become stable. In some cases these lesions may further develop to clinically active disease. Therefore, before making the use of the available vaccines for trials, this tubercle count method proves beneficial to judge its efficiency.

Rabbit tuberculosis has witnessed serious epidemic leading to numerous deaths. Globalization and increase in migration have speedily mixed infected species with uninfected ones and contributed to the spread of the disease. However, organizations like Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and American Society for Microbiology constantly conduct R&D and put forward curable techniques and vaccines.