Seroprevalence and potential risk factors of bovine brucellosis at the livestock-wildlife interface area of Yankari game reserve, Bauchi State, Nigeria.

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the seroprevalence and associations with potential risk factors of brucellosis in indigenous cattle breeds at the livestock-wildlife interface area of Yankari Game Reserve, Bauchi State, Nigeria. A total of 1000 sera samples were examined from 44 herds using convenient and simple random sampling technique. Rose Bengal Plate Test (RBPT) and competitive Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (c-ELISA) were used as screening and confirmatory tests respectively. Of the 1000 samples, 23.5% samples were RBPT positive, and after the confirmatory test, the overall true animal-level prevalence was 4.1%. For the herd level prevalence, (47.7%) herds had at least one animal that is seropositive following both tests. Brucellosis seroprevalence was significantly associated with the following potential risk factors; herds that belong to a cooperative society member (p<0.042), herds that keep only cattle (p<0.001), herds that practice commercial farming system (p<0.011), herds that possess a herd size of 51 to 100 cattle (p?0.009) and herds that have no history of abortion and other reproductive disorder (p<0.009). No statistically significant differences in brucellosis seroprevalence was obtained within sex, breed and age groups It can be concluded that brucellosis is still endemic in the study area.