Abstract

A cross-sectional study was carried out to define the seroprevalence of brucellosis in target animals and the perception of the community on the disease in sheep and goat. Study was undertaken in four purposefully selected sub-regions of the Gardo district of Karkaar region of Somalia, namely: Kubo, Xabaal-reer, Guud-cad, and Cambaaro of Gardo. The small ruminants studied comprised of the 225 indigenous Somali Caprine and 180 black head Somali Ovine in pastoral production systems. Among another thing in dealing with the disease, the overwhelming of them (85%) buy drugs off the shelf, while the rest (15%) seek help from veterinarians or Community-Based Animal Health Workers (CAHWs). In addition, caprine and ovine RBPT positive males and females were compared and found that at 95% CI there are no significant differences between each species' gender RBPT positives, respectively. For the Four hundred and two sera samples screened by RBPT tested 34 (9.35%) were confirmed to have been positive. According to species basis, the prevalence of caprine over ovine is not significantly different (8.2 and 8.9%, respectively). Further Logistic regression analysis was performed, and statistically significant differences were not observed between the gender of the Caprine species tested. However, the female ovine is significantly lower (6.2%) than that of male (16%) with P-value of 4.4X10-2 and odd ratio of 0.35 (0.50–4.01). The result in this study is higher than the similar ones recorded conducted in the neighboring countries thus, warrants further confirmatory tests.

Key words: Brucellosis, Karkaar region, sero-prevalence, small ruminant, ovine and caprine.