Economic and health burden of brucellosis in Kazakhstan.

Abstract

Brucellosis is a widespread zoonotic disease considered as an emerging and re-emerging disease with a resulting threat of public health and animal health. Official reportsdocument an animal incidence in Kazakhstan ofabout 0.6% per year, and thecountry still registers high number of human casesannually . The main objective of this paper was to evaluate the distribution and economic impact of brucellosis in Kazakhstan. We analysed human disease incidence data obtained from the Government Sanitary & Epidemiological Service with the aim to estimate the burden of disease in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). We also estimated the economic impact in terms of monetary losses. Additionally,we mapped the geographical distribution of the disease throughout Kazakhstan. In total, 1,334 human cases of brucellosis were registered in 2015 in Kazakhstan that resulted in 713 DALYs. Around $21million was spent on compensation for animals that had to be slaughtered due to brucellosis, and an additional $24million was spent on testing animals. Animal brucellosis and human brucellosis occur throughout the whole country, some trends of which are reviewed in this paper. We estimated the burden of the disease and explored possible explanation for high human incidence rates. This paper is the first to estimate the human burden of disease and the economic costs in Kazakhstan. Both of these are substantial.