Abstract

The economic and public health impact of brucellosis remains of concern in developing countries. The disease can generally cause significant loss of productivity through abortion, still birth, low herd fertility and comparatively low milk production. In Ethiopia brucellosis prevalence studies have been conducted in different agro-ecology of the country. But, in general there was information gap on disease dynamics, identification of strain circulating in the region. The paper reviewed the distribution of brucellosis in different regions of Ethiopia and its prevalence among different livestock hosts. Risk factors for the occurrence of brucellosis and finally, different strategies for the control and prevention of brucellosis under Ethiopian conditions are discussed.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The existing report indicated the there is increasing over all herd level seroprevalence at national level in spite of the numbers of seroprevalence report for animal brucellosis and there is information gap on disease dynamics, distribution and proportion of natural hosts which was not studied exhaustively. Different authors report that the major risk factors for animal brucellosis are age in association with increased parity, and herd size in different production systems in the country. To the laboratory test all the authors reported only seroprevalence by either of rose Bengal and/or complement fixation; no attempt was made for isolation of agent circulating so, the existing scenario of brucellosis in Ethiopia calls coordinated nationwide epidemiological surveillance which is urgently required together with typing of infecting strains. Therefore, isolation and characterization in connection with nationwide epidemiological surveillance are required to quantify magnitude and extent of economic loss on farm animal.