Serological prevalence of brucellosis of cattle in selected dairy farms in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the status of brucellosis in dairy cattle from five selected dairy farms in the Mohammadpur Beribadh area of Bangladesh. A cross-sectional study was carried out from October 2010 to March 2011 in which a total of 334 serum samples from cattle in five herds were screened by the Rose-Bengal plate-agglutination test (RBPT) and the positives were confirmed using an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (I-ELISA). A structured questionnaire was used to collect epidemiological information describing the animals. Overall, 4.20% of the animals were RBPT positive, while subsequent confirmatory tests with I-ELISA revealed that the overall animal-level prevalence derived from the samples was 1.20%. Additionally, the prevalence was relatively higher in females than in males. A significant association was found between abortion, age of the animals, and the occurrence of brucellosis (p < 0.05). Considering the overall low prevalence of brucellosis in the selected farms in the present study, a brucellosis eradication program for dairy farms using a test-and-slaughter policy would be possible.