Risk Factors, Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health Importance of Brucellosis

Abstract

Brucellosis is an important livestock and human disease in many developing countries for its cause of reproductive disease, characterized by abortion, retained fetal membranes and impaired fertility. The prevalence of brucellosis depends on different risk factors including host risk factors, agent risk factors, management risk factors and occupational risk factors. Genetically, all Brucella species are highly related to each other, exhibiting sequence similarity values of 98% to 100% at nucleotide level (core genome).Despite this close genetic relatedness, the various species can be distinguished from each other by application of high resolution molecular typing tools such as polymerase chain reaction, single nucleotide polymorphism analysis and multi-locus sequence typing or multi-locus sequence in addition to assessment of phenotype and host preference. Each year half a million case of brucellosis occurs in humans around the world. Prevention and control of brucellosis can be adopted realistically through understanding of local and regional variations in animal husbandry practices, social customs, infrastructures and epidemiological patterns of the disease and species of Brucella.