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. 2018 Nov 6;14(1):329.
doi: 10.1186/s12917-018-1670-2.

A study to identify the practices of the buffalo keepers which inadvertently lead to the spread of brucellosis in Delhi

Nimita Kant  1 , Parul Kulshreshtha  2 , Rashmi Singh  1 , Anuradha Mal  3 , Amita Dwivedi  1 , Riya Ahuja  1 , Rinkle Mehra  1 , Mohit Tehlan  1 , Paritosh Ahmed  1 , Shilpa Kaushik  1 , Shipra  1 , Shashikant Kumar  1 , Aas Mohammad  1 , Shrikrishn Shukla  1 , Damini Singh  4 , Rakesh Bhatnagar  5   6
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A study to identify the practices of the buffalo keepers which inadvertently lead to the spread of brucellosis in Delhi

Nimita Kant et al. BMC Vet Res. .

Abstract

Background: India has the largest Buffalo population in the world, with every household in rural India owning buffaloes depending upon daily milk requirement - dairy farmers can own between 10 to 70 buffaloes. The health of Indian buffaloes is of economic importance since India is one of the largest buffalo meat exporters in the world, and Indian Buffalo semen is sold in the USA for breeding purposes. However, National Control Program on brucellosis is only active in South India and in Panjab (a North Indian state with high human brucellosis incidence). Our aim was to assess the knowledge and practices of the buffalo keepers of Delhi that make them susceptible to brucellosis.

Results: Amongst all the 11 districts of Delhi, there was 0% awareness about brucellosis and also about the S19 vaccine as the buffalo keepers had never heard of S19 vaccine which is available at minimal cost from Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly, India. Majority of the respondents drink raw milk, sleep in cattle sheds, do not isolate sick cattle, do not test buffaloes blood for any disease before purchasing them, apply intrauterine medication with bare hands to buffalo after abortion of foetus, never clean their cattle sheds with a disinfectant and believe that they can only acquire skin infections from cattle. All of these habits make them prone to brucellosis. While about 20 to 27% of respondents reported a history of abortions and retained placenta, disposed of the placenta with bare hands, and applied raw milk on cracked lips. It was surprising to note that majority of them never reared small ruminants like sheep and goat with buffaloes or Bos species as they were aware of the rapid spread of disease from small to big ruminants.

Conclusions: We found that buffalo keepers were ignorant of brucellosis, its causative agent, relevant vaccines and that they also involved in high-risk activities. As such, our findings highlight a need for buffalo keepers to be better educated via several awareness camps to minimize human exposure to Brucella in Delhi.

Keywords: Brucella; Cattle keepers; Delhi; Habits; Practices.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All respondents signed consent to participate in the survey. The research published here was approved by the Institutional Bioethical and Biosafety Committee of Shivaji College, University of Delhi. Reference number of the same is SHC308, Innovation Project cycle 2015/2016.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Annual income of the respondents in Indian currency (Rupees)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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