Mycobacterium bovis tuberculosis in hunting hounds

We thank Phipps and others for their response ( VR , 22 September 2018, vol 183, p 356) to our letter. We would argue that the original paper1 does imply that the human case of latent tuberculosis (TB) may have come from hounds, stating that: ‘One kennel worker was also diagnosed with latent TB, potentially due to exposure to infected hounds and/or their contaminated feed, though this remains unproven.’ We welcome the previously unpublished data and retract our original statement, to replace it with: ‘One member of staff was diagnosed with a latent infection from an as yet uncharacterised species of Mycobacterium . Further detail is needed, but the potential risk of dog-to-human transmission of bovine TB remains “plausible and real”.’1 While we appreciate that Phipps and colleagues wish to protect personal privacy, it seems odd for Public Health England to discourage identification of the hunt at this late stage, as this information was publicly confirmed by Defra more than a year ago. The authors cite a 2006 paper by Ellis and colleagues which describes in detail a case of bovine TB in a pet dog.2 Although Phipps and colleagues claim that …