A model of animal–human brucellosis transmission in Mongolia

Abstract

We developed a dynamic model of livestock-to-human brucellosis transmission in Mongolia. The compartmental model considers transmission within sheep and cattle populations and the transmission to humans as additive components. The model was fitted to demographic and seroprevalence data (Rose Bengal test) from livestock and annually reported new human brucellosis cases in Mongolia for 1991–1999 prior to the onset of a mass livestock-vaccination campaign (S19 Brucella abortus for cattle and Rev1 Brucella melitensis for sheep and goat). The vaccination effect was fitted to livestock- and human-brucellosis data from the first 3 years of the vaccination campaign (2000–2002). Parameters were optimized on the basis of the goodness-of-fit (assessed by the deviance). The simultaneously fitted sheep–human and cattle–human contact rates show that 90% of human brucellosis was small-ruminant derived. Average effective reproductive ratios for the year 1999 were 1.2 for sheep and 1.7 for cattle.