Epidemiological investigations of occurrence of Brucellosis in goats in Ludhiana District of Punjab State of India

Abstract

Background: Brucellosis in animals is endemic in India, in sheep and goats. I investigated the frequency of Brucellosis in goats in Ludhiana district of Punjab state of India because it is of great public health concern yet there is hardly any report in this regard from this region recently. A total of 191 serum samples of goats from slaughter houses were analyzed with RBPT, STAT, MAT and ELISA. Methods and materials: Rose Bengal Plate Agglutination Test (RBPT). RBPT was carried out by colored antigen with the method of Morgan et al., 10 μl of antigen was mixed with 10 μl of serum and observed for clumps as positive. Estimation of Antibody Titers by Standard Tube Agglutination Test (STAT) The standard method recommended by OIE was followed. 40 IU was taken as positive. Estimation of Antibody Titers by Microtiter Agglutination Test (MAT) MAT was performed as per the standard method. The formation of matt signified positive. The titer was expressed as International Units (I.U.) per milliliter of serum. Competitive Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay (cELISA) All the serum samples were subjected to analysis by competitive ELISA employing a commercial kit Svanovir Brucella Antibody cELISA Kit (Svanova). Statistical analysis The results were analyzed by ANOVA and students ‘t’ test using online software. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated using the standard formulae Results: Out of A total of 191 samples from goats 14 were found to be positive by RBPT, 17 by STAT, 21 each by MAT and ELISA. ELISA and MAT detected the highest number of samples followed by RBPT and STAT, respectively. Frequency of occurrence of the disease in goats was estimated to be 5.23% by RBPT and ELISA.The mean titers of anti-Brucella antibodies in goat sera were 36.66 ± 16.32 by STAT and 49.16 ± 29.47 by MAT, the difference was non-significant by ‘t’ test. Conclusion: The present study revealed the frequency of occurrence of Brucellosis in goats in Ludhiana district, Punjab to be 5.23% by RBPT and ELISA. This is alarming considering the high consumption of mutton and milk in this region.