The Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Shri Y.S. Chowdary, has called for villagers to be trained to handle animal diseases like Brucellosis on a cooperative basis. Speaking after inaugurating International Research Conference on Brucellosis in New Delhi today he expressed concern that Brucellosis is endemic in India and that it could spread to humans. He along with the Minister of State, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Sudarshan Bhagat, who presided over the meeting, released various vaccines and three new diagnostic kits. They also launched programme of “Brucella Free Villages” for implementation on pilot scale in 50 villages covering 10 states. This programme will be supported by guidelines and standard operating practices along with an IT enabled application.
Brucellosis is a dreadful disease caused by the genus of the bacteria known as Brucella infecting various species of Brucella cows, buffalos, sheep, goats, deer, pigs, dogs and other animals as well as humans. The disease causes economic losses of about Rs. 28000.00 Crores.
Human become infected by coming in contact with animals or animal product like meat and milk contaminated with these bacteria. Dairy man, veterinarians, butchers and other animal handlers are exposed to high risk of brucellosis infection. In humans brucellosis can cause range of symptoms that are similar to the flu and may include fever, sweats, headache, back pain and physical weakness. Severe infections of the central nervous system or lining of the heart may also occur. Quite often brucellosis is diagnosed after ruling out all other fevers such as those caused by malaria, typhoid, dengue etc. Therefore, the disease is under reported and many medical professionals are not even aware of the problem.
The three day International Conference on Brucellosis, beginning today is being organized by the Department of Biotechnology in collaboration with Indian Council for Agriculture Research. The conference is result of DBT’s network programme on Brucellosis launched in 2012 to address this epidemiology and for development of new generation of vaccines and diagnostic kits.
The International Brucellosis Conference 2016 shall provide a technical platform for scientist and experts from all over the world. Participants from 26 countries include USA, Belgium, Germany, Nigeria, Argentina, Spain, Turkey, Costa Rica, Norway, Nepal, Korea, Bangladesh, Armenia, Jordan, France, Iran, Mexico, Georgia, United Kingdom, Kenya, Thailand, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Sri Lanka. The three days deliberations would address various issues on Brucellosis covering broad and interdisciplinary field of “One Health” concept revolving around Brucella Pathogenesis & Host-pathogen interaction; Human Brucellosis; Epidemiology and Control; Brucella research in India; Canine and Wildlife Brucellosis; Diagnostic methods; and Vaccines & Immunology.