A recent publication in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation (Haydock et al. 2022) describes an interesting but unfortunate case of tuberculosis in a dog. Published reports of rare cases like this are often of limited value, but sometimes they highlight important broader issues, and I think this one fits that category.

The

Dog on leash2A few times a year I get questions about tuberculosis (TB) in dogs, typically after a person is diagnosed with active TB and people want to know what the risks are to, and from, their dog. It’s often tough to answer those questions, because there’s limited information available. Risks exist, but how much of a

When I’m giving talks about zoonotic diseaes to people in the human healthcare field, I sometimes mention tuberculosis (TB) as an example of a serious human disease with poorly defined (but theoretically important) risks of transmission between people and pets. TB is a very important disease of increasing of concern because of its resurgence in many

A bird specialty store owner wrote me recently, concerned about potential tuberculosis (TB) exposure. A client’s bird had been diagnosed with "human TB" and that person had spent a lot of time with the bird. The source of the TB hadn’t been identified, and the store owner was worried about the risk that he/she had been exposed

Tuberculosis (TB) is a very important public health issue.  Caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB is likely the most widespread human infectious disease. Although it primarily affects people, it can rarely affect various animal species as well, including pets. The relevance of dogs to human TB is unclear: we know dogs can (rarely)