Brucella abortus infection in humans in Nigeria has been recorded as a cause of febrile disease. In Nigeria, the transhumance (Fulani nomadic) husbandry system is the most common cattle farming system with about 95% of all the country's cattle population produced under this husbandry system. About 75% of all slaughtered cattle are processed in government-approved abattoirs. In view of the aforementioned, this abattoir can give a fair representation for a surveillance study of the Nigerian cattle population. 220 cattle were selected on arrival using systematic random sampling from a total slaughter population of 17,912 cattle, and were chosen over a 10-week period. Sixty-three percent (63.2%) of all slaughtered animals were cows, and only 4% were under 18 months (two-tooth). The indigenous breeds predominated and individual seroprevalence of B. abortus was estimated at 5.45% (n=12) using the Rose Bengal plate test. Currently, no safety measures is in place for abattoir workers and pre-slaughter monitoring for positive animals is lacking. Certain measures were suggested to reduce the zoonotic risk of human brucellosis from the slaughter process.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.