ANNAPURNA S.A., MAHAVIR JOSHI
Abstract
Brucellosis is a widespread important zoonotic infectious disease caused by members of the genus Brucella. Despite being endemic in many developing countries, brucellosis remains one of the most under diagnosed and under-reported diseases. The work is undertaken to study the seroprevalence of brucellosis by using conventional and molecular techniques. For the present study, a total of 713 serum samples were collected from the individuals along with the history including the age, sex, profession, clinical history, diagnosis attempted and duration of illness. The serum samples were screened by conventional tests Viz., RBPT, STAT, Brucellacapt (Vircell Microbiologist, Spain) agglutination test and molecular technique (PCR). In the first phase the samples were screened by RBPT and the sero positive samples were screened by STAT in the second phase followed by Brucellacapt in the third phase. The seropositive samples were subjected for DNA extraction and subsequently PCR assay by amplifying partial bcsp-31kD genus specific gene. The analysis of RBPT and STAT revealed 3.2% (23 positive out of 713) indicating the equal efficacy of the tests in detecting Brucella specific antibodies whereas Brucellacapt and PCR revealed 4.9% (35 positive out of 713) and 1.7% (12 positive out of 713) seroprevalence respectively. In the present study, males were found to be more prone to the infection than females in the age group 41-50 years. The efficacy of Brucellacapt in detecting seropositive cases of brucellosis is higher when compared to the other techniques.