PREVALENCE OF BRUCELLOSIS IN PIGS: THE FIRST REPORT IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Brucellosis, a bacterial zoonotic disease, has been reported in ruminants but still no report in pigs in Bangladesh. The aim of this study was to describe seroprevalence of brucellosis in swine in Bangladesh. Blood from a total of 105 pigs was collected from selected areas of Bangladesh. All samples were screened using Rose Bengal Test (RBT) and further confirmed by using Slow Agglutination Test (SAT). A structured questionnaire was used to collect the epidemiological data related to the animals and husbandry practices. Out of the 105 sera analyzed, 7 (6.7%) and 5 (4.8%) were found to be positive by RBT and SAT respectively. It was observed that, insignificantly higher prevalence of brucellosis based on SAT was found in female (5.6%) than male (2.9%), in aged animal (8.1%) than young (0.0%) and in pregnant animal (12.5%) than non pregnant animal (2.1%) (p>0.05). Prevalence of brucellosis was 42.9% in aborted pigs and 1.6% in non aborted pigs. The association between abortion status and prevalence of brucellosis was statistically highly significant (p<0.01). This report of prevalence of brucellosis in pigs is very important with regards to the human health and other livestock and might help Government and NGOs to design preventive measurement and establish livestock health policy.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjvm.v10i1-2.15649