New campaign to control brucellosis

A new plan to control brucellosis in Iraq is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) following recent reports of infection in animals. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is supervising the operation. "The situation is not out of control yet but the disease exists in Iraq and we hope to control it before there is an outbreak. We registered 6,775 infected cattle in 2004 but the number could be four or five times higher," the director of animal health in the MoA, Dr Basem Najim, told IRIN in Baghdad. The existing data was collected randomly in the country and there are no accurate figures on the precise scale of the problem at present. The last survey of brucellosis infection in Iraq was carried out by the MoA between 1994 and 2004. Of a total population of 18 million sheep and goats it found 12 percent of goats and 10 percent of sheep to be infected. The rate of infection of amongst the 1.5 million head of cattle was found to be lower at 0.5 percent. Once an infected herd is located, quarantining all affected cattle and slaughtering contains the infection, until the disease can be eliminated. Although MoA officials could not provide an accurate breakdown, the highest rate of infection found recently was in the northern city of Mosul. “There is a larger number of infected animals in the north because there are more sheep there, around 4 million, compared with southern Iraq, which is a poorer area, and has only 200,000 sheep," he added. The new plan will be implemented in several stages. The first stage, which runs from April to until June, is to survey infected animals in all 18 governorates. This will be followed by the inoculation or slaughter of all infected animals. "We hope to decrease the infection in sheep and goats to fewer than 2 percent and under 0.2 percent for cows. In addition, there should be no more than four infections for every 100,000 people," Najim added. Brucellosis mainly attacks cattle but can be passed on to humans. It is not generally life-threatening for people and the symptoms include intermittent fever, headaches, chills, depression and weight loss. The disease is caused by a genus of bacteria known scientifically as the genus brucella and commonly transmitted by direct contact with infected animals or with an environment that has been contaminated with discharge from infected animals. "We will do our best to cooperate with government to decrease this disease. It poses a big risk to our cattle and our health. One of my children was infected by this disease four years ago," a farmer in Baghdad, Mahamed Jasem, told IRIN. Brucellosis was discovered in Iraq after 1994 when 9,320 animals were infected, according to MoA figures. After the 2003 conflict, the collapse of the veterinary infrastructure has meant that animal diseases have increased. If disease runs uncontrolled it could have devastating effects on the economy and health of the people. The situation made the FAO take the decision to start a new programme to re-establish veterinary hospitals and laboratories and improve the ability of the health services to control diseases which can also threaten the human population.