DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2019.v07i07.004

Pages: 2272-2278

Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) is a zoonotic disease transmitted from infected animals to humans through close contact and ingestion of raw animal products. A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess knowledge, attitude and practice within the community regarding BTB and associated risk factors over a period of 2 months from December 2018 to February 2019 in Singur, Hooghly (W.B.). A structured pre -tested questionnaire was self-administered by the consented study participants in the area. A total of 109 (48.6% males and 45.8% females ) respondents were selected of which 90% of participants had least one cattle in their homes mainly for the purpose of milk production and the remaining 10% were non-cattle owners. Among the cattle owners we found about 26.5% of the animals were sick, and 48.9% had persistent cough present. Only 9.17% of the surveyed population had heard about BTB while the rest were completely unaware. And 96.6% of the population had no knowledge regarding the disease transmission, while only 1.83% of the population was aware that transmission occurs via raw animal products. 27.5% of the population believed that it is a communicable zoonotic disease on the other hand 47.1% didn’t hold any form of knowledge. Among all the participants 5.5% had TB patients within the family members. Veterinarians, public health specialists and human health care service organisations need to emphasis more on the spread of the knowledge of BTB through creation of various programs and activities as majority population is of cattle owners and farmers.