Comparisons of brucellosis between human and veterinary medicine

Abstract

Brucellosis is the world's most widespread zoonosis, but also ranks as one of the seven most neglected diseases, according to the World Health Organization. Additionally, it is recognized as the world's most common laboratory-acquired infection. There are a reported 500,000 incident cases of human brucellosis per year. However, true incidence is estimated to be 5,000,000 to 12,500,000 cases annually. Once diagnosed, focus is directed at treating individual patients with antibiotic regimes, yet overall neglecting the animal reservoir of disease. Countries with the highest incidence of human brucellosis are Syria (1,603.4 cases per 1,000,000 individuals), Mongolia (391.0), and Tajikistan (211.9). Surveillance on animal populations is lacking in many developed and developing countries. According to the World Animal Health Information Database, Mexico had the largest number of reported outbreaks, 5,514 in 2014. Mexico is followed by China (2,138), Greece (1,268), and Brazil (1,142). The majority of these outbreaks is Brucella abortus, the etiologic agent of bovine brucellosis. Brucellosis is an ancient disease that still plagues the world. There are still knowledge gaps and a need for better diagnostics and vaccines to make inroads towards control and eradication.

Keywords: Risk factors; diagnostics; infectious disease epidemiology; neglected disease; pathogenesis; vaccines.

Figure 1.

Heat map of human incidence (per 1,000,000 individuals). White space indicates no data. Adapted from Pappas et al., 2006 and other sources [23,27,28].

Figure 2.

Heat map of number of brucellosis outbreaks (B. abortus, B. melitensis, and B. suis) in livestock as reported to WAHIS for the last complete year of data, 2014. White space indicates no data. Grey space indicates zero reported outbreaks.