Tuberculosis (latin: tuberculosis) is an infectious disease which affects man and many species of animals. The aetiological factor of tuberculosis are bacillus which belong to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) while their host preferences, gene sequence and the level of drug resistance can differ. MTBC constitute a morphologically and biochemically homogeneous group of bacteria which mainly spreads through the aerogenic channel on small, dry particles of phlegm called droplet nuclei which are discharged while infected people or animals cough. Infection occurs after predisposed individual inhales into his or her lungs the bacilli, where they easily multiply in the soft lungs tissue and cause infection. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified bovine tuberculosis (bTB) as direct zoonosis, in which case the transmission of disease is possible without the indirect host’s involvement. Moreover, bTB is the best example of anthroponosis, when the disease is transferred from animal to men.
The possibility of dividing the strains of animal bacillus into the two genres: M. bovis and M. caprae raises some significant legal concerns in Europe since in many of its countries, including among others Poland, caprae is not considered to be an etiological factor of bTB.