ABSTRACT
Brucellosis is an important bacterial disease of bovidae, a serious zoonosis all over the world and an endemic animal disease in Brazil. Abortion and other reproductive disorders are suggestive of the disease the field, definitive diagnosis by serologic test. At the slaughter house lesions like bursitis it has been associated with. With the objective of diagnosing brucellosis in animals slaughtered for consumption and to associate it to bursitis, 52,035 bovidae (46,030 bovines and 6,005 water buffaloes) were studied from July 2001 to April 2002. Exudates of 52 cases of bursitis were submitted to serologic diagnosis according to seroaglutination tests of rose Bengal antigen, slow test tubes and 2mercaptoetanol test and the isolation and identification of presumptive species. The results demonstrated that brucellosis infection was present among bovidae, confirmed by isolation and identification of strains of Brucella spp. Fisher's exact test of revealed no relationship between sex and species (Pr ≥ 0.4236, IC 95%, α = 0.05) or age and species (Pr ≥ 0,2608, IC 95%, α = 0.05) but a relationship between species and origin of the animals (Pr ≥ 0.003, IC 95%,α = 0.05) in the occurence of Brucellosis infection in slaughtered bovidae. It was inferred that bursitis suggests infection by Brucella spp. in bovidae slaughtered for consumption.
KEY WORDS
Brucellosis; slaughtering of bovidae; bursitis; Brucella spp.; Amazonian Basin of Brazil