Prevalence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex among Wild Rhesus Macaques and 2 Subspecies of Long-Tailed Macaques, Thailand, 2018–2022

Abstract

We identified tuberculosis in 1,836 macaques from 6 wild rhesus (Macaca mulatta), 23 common long-tailed (M. fascicularis fascicularis), and 6 Burmese long-tailed (M. fascicularis aurea) macaque populations in Thailand. We captured, anesthetized, and collected throat, buccal, and rectal swab specimens from the macaques. We screened swabs for Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) using insertion sequence 6110–specific nested PCR. We found higher MTBC prevalence at both population and individual levels among M. mulatta than M. fascicularis fascicularis macaques; all 3 M. fascicularis aurea macaque populations were positive for tuberculosis. We found that throat swab specimens provided the best sample medium for detecting MTBC. Our results showed no difference in MTBC prevalence between male and female animals, but a higher percentage of adults were infected than subadults and juveniles. Although we detected no association between frequency of human–macaque interaction and MTBC prevalence, bidirectional zoonotic transmission should be considered a possible public health concern.

Keywords

• Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex
• tuberculosis and other mycobacteria
• IS6110
• bacteria
• respiratory infections
• macaques