An occupational hazard? Vet contracts TB from a wildebeest

By Meera Senthilingam, CNN

Updated 1014 GMT (1814 HKT) October 31, 2016

Vet Jonathan Cranston with wildebeest that may have infected him with zoonotic TB.
Vet Jonathan Cranston with wildebeest that may have infected him with zoonotic TB.

Story highlights

  • Jonathan Cranston suspects he caught TB from a wildebeest in South Africa
  • Global health experts are drawing attention to the animal form of the disease

(CNN)Late one night in April 2013, UK veterinarian Jonathan Cranston woke in agony. There was a sharp pain shooting through his chest.

"I felt like I'd been stabbed," he said. The pain soon passed, however, and he went back to sleep. "I didn't think much of it."
But that would not be the end of his ordeal.
In the weeks that followed, the stabbing pain didn't return, but it was replaced with night sweats, shortness of breath, coughing and weight loss. "I started deteriorating quite quickly," he said.