Prevalence and risk factors associated with brucellosis among high-risk individuals in Lafia, Nasarawa state, Nigeria

Research Article

International Journal of One Health, 4: 45-51

https://doi.org/10.14202/IJOH.2018.45-51

Charity Ashe'osla Agada¹, Jibrin Mohammed^1,2, Anthony Ekele Joseph Okoh¹, and Joseph Akwoba Ogugua³

1. Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria.
2. Department of Animal Science, School of Agriculture, College of Agriculture, Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria.
3. Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria.

Background and Aim: Brucellosis caused by Brucella species is a zoonotic disease prevalent in Nigeria. Data on this disease in humans and its risk factors in Lafia, Nasarawa State, are lacking. This study was, therefore, designed to determine the prevalence of brucellosis and the risk factors among individuals most at risk in Lafia, Nasarawa State.

Materials and Methods: This study was conducted on high-risk individuals in the area using the Rose Bengal test (RBT) and questionnaire.

Results: Out of the 160 respondents tested for seropositivity to brucellosis, 10% (16/160) prevalence was recorded with the RBT. None of the factors evaluated was found to be significantly associated with the seroprevalence of brucellosis in the area. On the other hand, final logistic regression analysis found the knowledge of brucellosis to be significantly associated with the profession (OR=11.52; 95% CI=1.47-90.46; p=0.02) and age (OR=2.6; 95% CI=1.11-4.19; p=0.023). Furthermore, practices that expose to Brucella infection were found to be significantly associated with the site (OR=4.02; 95% CI=5.29- 333.33; p=0.000) and marital status (OR=2.44; 95% CI=1.03-5.75; p=0.042).

Conclusion: Brucellosis is prevalent among occupationally exposed individuals in Lafia. There should be continued surveillance for the disease and education of high-risk individuals in the area. Keywords: age, brucellosis, humans, Lafia, prevalence, profession.

Keywords: age, brucellosis, humans, Lafia, prevalence, profession.

How to cite this article: Agada CA, Mohammed J, Okoh AEJ, Ogugua JA (2018) Prevalence and risk factors associated with brucellosis among high-risk individuals in Lafia, Nasarawa state, Nigeria. Int J One Health 2018;4:45-51.

Received: 27-07-2018 Accepted: 27-08-2018 Published online: 23-09-2018

Corresponding author: Charity Ashe'osla Agada E-mail: caysla@gmail.com

DOI: 10.14202/IJOH.2018.45-51

Copyright: Agada, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.