Brucellosis, is a febrile, zoonotic disease caused by bacteria of genus Brucella. It is a second most important zoonotic disease after rabies. (WHO, OIE, FAO). Brucella is gram negative, aerobic, non-spore forming and non-motile coccobacilli. (Gull and Khan, 2007).The main signs are abortion after fifth month of pregnancy, still births, birth of weak calves, infertility, placentitis in females and in male’s epididymitis and orchitis. Due to its zoonotic nature farm labors, butchers, veterinarians and slaughter house workers are at high risk. Signs in human brucellosis are highly variable i.e., flu, rising and falling of temperature and causes many other complications in the body. (Baba et al.2001; Grillo et al. 2006; Shimol et al. 2012). Standard tests for brucellosis are Rose Bengal Precipitation Test (RBPT), Serum Agglutination Test (SAT) and Complement Fixation Test (CFT) (Memish et al, 2002). Its control is very difficult due to its variable incubation period, long survival time in both extracellular and intracellular environments, asymptomatic stages and resistant to the treatment, co-mingling, increasing population size and nomadism (Rahman et al. 2006).
The case study was conducted on the commercial dairy farms situated in the catchment area of University Diagnostic Laboratory, UVAS Lahore which were located Lahore, Kasur and Sheikhupura districts in Punjab. The data about positive and negative farms was obtained from university diagnostic lab, UVAS, Lahore. A predesigned questionnaire was filled from that farm workers in face to face interview. The sample size was calculated by the formula given by Schlesselman, 1982. The parameters for calculation of the sample size were power of study kept at 80% with 95% confidence interval. Total 90 samples were included (cases= 45, controls=45). Data was analyzed using chi-square. All statistical tests were performed at the significance level of 0.05.
In this study, absence of the calving pens at the farm, feeding and water practices, presence of streams and lakes near the farm and breeding practices show the strong association with this disease,by controlling the above factors and improving management at the farm can low the occurrence and spread of the disease in animals.