Knowing the status of Bovine brucellosis and associated risk factors is a crucial step in formulating evidence based control scheme. In this study, a total of 967 dairy cows from 307 dairy farms in eastern Ethiopia were serologically tested for Brucella antibodies. The screening was done first using RBPT and positive samples were subsequently subjected to CFT for confirmation. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect relevant data from 307 dairy cattle owners or attendants to assess their awareness and routine practice. The data were run using univariable logistic regression analysis using STATA version 11.0 for Windows. Accordingly, herd and individual animal seroprevalence were found to be 6.8% (95% CI = 4.28-10.28) and 1.3% (95% CI = 0.72-2.29), respectively. The prevalence of sero-reactors among local breeds was observed to be higher compared to cross breed (p < 0.05). Herd level analysis of the risk factors indicated that in farms with large herd size (>20 animals), the odds ratio (OR) = 9.13, p = 0.00, CI = 3.01-27.69 of having brucellosis was 9.13 times higher than smaller size herds (<20 animals). Intensively managed herds had shown the highest seroprevalence (20.8%) than extensive (6.7%) and semi-intensive (4.2%). Experience of dairy handlers about the disease that cause abortion in late pregnancy was significantly associated (p < 0.001) with the occurrence of brucellosis in the herds. However, about 91% of the dairy cattle owners/attendants lack awareness about disease(s) that causes abortion in late pregnancy. Similarly risk of having brucellosis in those herds experiencing abortion was 6.3 times higher (OR = 6.3, p < 0.001, CI = 2.50-15.92). This study identified some of the handling practices for aborted and retained fetal materials to be risky. Therefore, the study highlights the need of comprehensive brucellosis surveillance in animal and human and institutions of public education and on farm biosafety measures in shaping proper disease control scheme.

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Cystic Echinococcosis (CE) is one of the most important zoonotic and economically important disease prevalent in different parts of Ethiopia and the world at large. This survey aimed to estimate the prevalence, identify associated risk factors, and tissue distribution patterns of CE in camels slaughtered at Addis Ababa municipality abattoir. Out of 416 one-humped camels examined during meat inspection, hydatid cysts were detected in 159 (38.22%) of them. The cyst was detected more frequently in the lungs (37.02%) followed by liver (35.1%), but very few camels had cysts in their heart, spleen, and kidneys. Significantly higher (p <0.05) prevalence of hydatid cyst was observed in female than male camels (48.05% vs 32.4%), in adult camels than young ones (53.1% vs 20.2%), and camels with good (25.0%) and medium body conditions (67.4%) compared to those in poor body condition (7.7%). The study further revealed that out of 768 cysts collected from the different organs, 169 (22%), 215 (28%) and 384 (70.57%) were abscessed/calcified, sterile and fertile cysts, respectively. About 54% (n=235) of the cysts in the lungs and 45% (n=148) in the liver were fertile. Of which, 146 (62.13%) cysts in lungs and 87 (58.78%) cysts in liver were viable. In conclusion, this study revealed a high prevalence of CE with a higher proportion of fertile and viable cysts in the pastoral areas. Therefore, to reduce the wide spread occurrence of CE and hence the presumed public health and socio-economic impacts, extension work on safe disposal of infected offal and dead animals, awareness creation to the community about the disease, construction of abattoirs with appropriate disposal pits and strict meat inspection should be given due consideration Keywords: Abattoir; Camelus dromedarius; Cystic echinococcosis; Prevalence; Risk factor.

A study was conducted on 393 apparently healthy exotic and local chickens reared at different management systems in eastern Ethiopia in order to determine the sero-prevalence of Salmonella Gallinarum and Salmonella Pullorum. To achieve this objective, blood samples were collected and the expressed sera were used from the selected chickens for antibody detection. The samples were from Haramaya University (309 chickens) and Dire Dawa (84 chickens). Subsequently, serum slide agglutination test was employed. Based on this, the overall prevalence of Salmonella Gallinarum and Salmonella Pullorum was 125/393 (31.8%). The prevalence of each farm was 95 (30.7%) Haramaya University farm, 13 (32.5%) Dire Dawa University farm and 17 (38.6%) local breeds of Dire Dawa. Moreover, the study has recorded higher prevalence in back yard chickens as compared to chickens reared at intensive farms. However, associated risk factors have not been found statistically significant at (P value < 0.05). In conclusion, the present study revealed Salmonella Gallinarum and Salmonella Pullorum were prevalent in both production systems. Therefore, further epidemiological investigations on these pathogens and implementation of control measures are mandatory.