Risk factors for human brucellosis in Iran: a casecontrol study
Abstract number: 1733_727
Soofian M., Ramezani A., Banifazl M., Mohraz M., Velayati A.A., Aghakhani A., Eslamifar A.
Objective: Brucellosis is a health problem in the central province of Iran (Arak city). The major aim of the present study was to evaluate the risk factors for acquiring brucellosis in Arak.
Methods: A matched casecontrol study was conducted in the central part of Iran. A total of 300 subjects (150 cases and 150 controls) were enrolled in our investigation. Brucellosis cases were defined on the basis of epidemiologic, clinical, and laboratory criteria using the Standard Tube Agglutination (STA) test and 2-mercaptoethanol agglutination. Subjects were interviewed using a standard questionnaire acquiring demographic and risk factor information. Data were analysed calculating the odds ratio and the confidence intervals for the studied variables. A conditional logistic regression model was used to explore the association between disease and the studied variables.
Results: The age of patients varied between 2 and 86 years (mean: 33.37±21.3 years); 55.3% were males. There were no significant differences in age, gender, marriage situation, residence area (rural/urban), education level, knowledge about prevention routes of brucellosis and occupation between case and control subjects. There was no statistically significant correlation between acquisition of brucellosis, infertility and abortion in sheep and cattle kept at home. Significant risk factors for infection related to existence of (an)other case(s) of brucellosis at home (OR = 7.55; CI: 3.9114.61; P < 0.0001) and consumption of unpasteurised dairy products (OR = 3.7; 95% CI: 1.648.3; P < 0.014). Knowledge of the mode of brucellosis transmission by fresh cheese appeared to be protective against disease transmission (OR = 0.44; CI: 0.230.85; P = 0.01).
We observed significant difference about keeping infected cattle, number of cattle in the house, cattle vaccination, positive family history of brucellosis, number of infected members in household, rate of relapse in family between case and control subjects (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: It is concluded that pasteurisation of dairy products and education regarding fresh cheese must be pursued for eradication of human brucellosis from rural areas. The greatest risk factor for acquiring brucellosis is existence of infected family members.
|Session name:||European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases|
|Location:||ICC, Munich, Germany|
|Back to top|