Answer to Question #141959 in Microbiology for Kainat Munir

Question

A fresh graduate student presented a research proposal on bovine Tuberculosis and strain identification involving conventional culturing techniques in your BSL2 laboratory, what is the hazard, characterize and evaluate the risk that either it is acceptable or not.

Answer 1

Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic infectious disease that poses threat to health of the human beings. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is commonly found in the lung tissues, although the microorganism can invade all organs of the body. MTB strains are divided into human and bovine types. The increasing number of drug-resistant strains has brought immense challenges to the prevention and treatment strategies on TB since TB is transmitted through the respiratory tract, it also poses a serious biosafety risk to the healthcare and laboratory workers through direct or indirect contact with patients.