Intervention measures applied to control brucellosis in Libya: The needs for effective control programs

Abstract

Efforts to control brucellosis in Libya have been employed for a long time over the last century. Although the international organisations such as FAO, OIE and WHO have offered vital help and cooperation, the data documented has rarely been addressed and utilised as a guidance for further control and eradication strategies. We aimed to retrospectively study and analyse the data available at the National Centre of Animal Health (NCAH) to identify the gaps and the shortcomings in the employed control programs and eradication systems and stimulate discussion on future strategies. Row data was obtained from the records of surveillance systems and serological results conducted at the NCAH. The data was analysed and tabulated using Microsoft Excel sheets. Whenever the information was missing, or incomplete, online database searches fulfilled the gaps. The data revealed that the disease continued to be endemic in the country with relatively higher rate of infection in small ruminants than in cattle and camels. Despite the efforts being in place to control brucellosis in the country, it seems that the intervention programs applied to control livestock brucellosis although it maintained low rate of infection were not effective to eradicate the disease completely.