Abstract
BackgroundBrucellosis remains one of the most common zoonotic diseases globally, with more than half million human cases reported annually. Brucellosis is an emerging and re-emerging disease in China since the 1990s. An infectious reservoir constituted by domestic animals with brucellosis, especially ovine and caprine herds, poses a significant threat to public health. The seroprevalence of brucellosis in sheep and goat flocks in a national context is unavailable so far. Therefore, we conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the overall status of brucellosis in sheep and goats in China in almost two decades.ResultsThe pooled prevalence of brucellosis in ovine and caprine flocks in China increased in 2000–2009 (1.00%; 95% CI, 0.70–1.30) to 2010–2018 (3.20%; 95% CI, 2.70–3.60). The seroprevalence of brucellosis in sheep and goat flocks was higher in Eastern China, with 7.00% of positive rate, than that in any other region, especially Shandong province (18.70%). Brucellosis is highly endemic in some local regions. The high prevalence of brucellosis in agricultural regions is suggestive of a shift of geographic distribution. The pooled prevalence of brucellosis is higher in goat flocks than in sheep flocks in China.ConclusionsThe overall data in this meta-analysis demands comprehensive intervention measures and further surveillance to facilitate the control of brucellosis in livestock. Further studies aimed at evaluating the risk factors associated with spreads of brucellosis in domestic animals unaddressed so far, and sufficient epidemiological data is important to the exploration and understanding of the prevalent status of brucellosis throughout the country and to disease control.
Highlights
Brucellosis remains one of the most common zoonotic diseases globally, with more than half million human cases reported annually
The quality of the articles was evaluated according to the following criteria: content of articles, prevalence of brucellosis, purpose of research, and comprehensiveness of data presented in the selected studies, 25 papers were scored to be high quality (3 or 4 points), scored medium quality (2 points), and the papers were classified into the low quality (0 or 1 point) (Additional file 1)
Our analysis demonstrated that the pooled brucellosis positive rate in ovine and caprine flocks in Eastern China was 7.00%, higher than that in other regions of China (Table 1)
Summary
Brucellosis remains one of the most common zoonotic diseases globally, with more than half million human cases reported annually. Brucellosis is a highly contagious zoonotic disease caused by various species of the genus Brucella and poses a threat to public health; over half a million cases of the disease are reported annually [1, 2]. Brucellosis is effectively controlled in developed countries, [4, 5], but it remains endemic in some developing countries and regions, especially in Middle East [6, 7], Africa [8,9,10], Central America [11] or Latin America [12] and Asia including China [13,14,15], where the seroprevalence and incidence of human brucellosis are increasing or even highly prevalent despite great efforts for the prevention and control of disease [16]. A substantial decline in the incidence rate of human brucellosis is expected when the prevalence of brucellosis is controlled by eliminating positive-animal reservoirs [1]
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