Abstract:
Brucellosis is a serious economic and public health importance disease which is the major
constraint that causes low productivity and mortality of animals in the country. Previously, the
status of disease in camel was not well document in study area and More importantly, poor
management practice of pastoral community indicates the need to study disease. In addition, the
economic impact of disease was not assessed in pastoral community area. A cross-sectional study
was conducted from March to December 2023 to estimate seroprevalence of camel brucellosis,
associated risk factors and economic impact, and to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of
pastoral community in Elwayye District of Borana Zone, southern Ethiopia. A total of 240 blood
samples were collected from extensively and traditional managed dromedary camel. The collected
samples were subjected to test for brucella antibodies using Rose Bengal Plate Test (RBPT) and
to indirect ELISA for confirmation. Risk factors like; herd size, Age, Management practice, history
of abortion and sex was assessed. The overall seroprevalence of camel brucellosis in the current
study by (RBPT) was 6.2% and by ELISA was 3.7%. The logistic regression analysis indicated
that, age (OR= 12.99, 95% CI=1.065-158.501), herd size (OR=20.22,95% CI= (1.823-224.368)
and management practice (OR=1.25, 95% CI= (0.075, 0.7884) were significantly associated with
brucella seropositivity in camels. But in this study sex, body condition and parity number were not
associated with brucella seropositive (P>0.05). In this study, highest economic loss per house hold
during production time was due to abortion or perinatal mortality of calves (341325 ETB) and
also there is milk production loss (7392.6 ETB). These indicate the need to study camel brucellosis
in study area and the disease was endemic and prevalent in pastoralist area which need well organized surveillance, disease control and prevention programs. Education to scale up
community knowledge and awareness creation about disease is important.
