Small ruminant brucellosis and awareness of pastoralist community about zoonotic importance of the disease in Yabello districts of Borena Zone Oromia regional state, southern Ethiopia

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease affecting the wellbeing of human and animals mainly in developing countries. Small ruminants are highly adaptable to broad range of environmental conditions and are the most important income sources for poor households. A cross sectional study was carried out on a total of 283 animals (99 sheep and 184 goats) from October 2016 till April 2017 to estimate seroprevalence of small ruminant brucellosis. In addition, a structured questionnaire was filled out by 126 respondents of 10 peasant associations (PA’s) to assess community awareness about zoonotic importance of diseases. The overall seroprevalence of the brucellosis in small ruminant was 23 (8.1%) (95% CI: 5.2, 11.9) revealed by c-ELISA. The individual species seroprevalence of brucellosis was 9.2 (95%CI: 5.5, 14.4) and 6.1(95%CI: 2.3, 12.7) in goat and sheep, respectively. Among 126 respondents, 112 (88.9) of had no knowledge about zoonotic importance of brucellosis and its transmission routs, whereas 14 (11.1%) of them were aware of the disease. Consequently, the majority of the respondents handled all aborted fetus; assisted their animals during the parturition by bare hand without any protective clothing, consumed raw milk and animal blood. In addition, the physicians were not aware of the disease and they did not consider the brucellosis while treating patient submitted to health post with suggestive clinical sign of brucellosis. Therefore, integrated human and veterinary doctors’ disease control strategy should be developed and applied to control the disease both in human and animals.