148
Brucellosis in India
INCIDENCE AND DISTRIBUTION
A conspectus of the incidence of the disease in India appears in the map (Fig. 1), while Table I
attempts to summarize its regional distribution in relation to climate.
Farms. Most of the organized farms in India have been visited and their stock blood-tested,
while specimens from most of the others have been examined. It has been found as a result that,
irrespective of situation, nearly all farms are more or less infected. Further, as most of the strains
isolated from farms are of the non-indigenous species (Br. abortus), the origin of the infection is attri-
buted to cattle imported from the occident. The distribution of farm brucellosis, therefore, is of
small significance, being on the whole fortuitous and depending on the situations of farms and the
character of their foundation stock. The rate of infection in farms, however, varies and appears
to some extent to depend on climate. Thus in military establishments in areas of low rainfall, the
normal annual abortion rate is 2 or 3 per cent in cows and about 1 per cent in buffaloes, but the rates
in farms situated near the rain belts are sometimes higher (Table II). Again, rates in the indigenous
stock of Government farms are about 1 per cent or less in the arid north-west and north and in the
upper Gangetic basin, but in the wetter east they rise to 2.5 to 5 per cent or more.
TABLE I
Regional distribution of brucellosis in India, with reference to climate
Region
Baluchistan, N. W. F. Province,
Rajputana
Punjab, United Provinces, Bihar
Bengal, Assam . . .
Western Hyderabad, Berar and
Western Central Provinces .
Eastern Central Provinces, east-
ern Hyderabad, Orissa, Madras,
Mysore, southern Bombay
.
Central and northern Bombay .
Character of region
Desert and arid hills
Cultivated plains .
Deltaic cultivation
and forested hills
Cultivated plateau
and forested hills
Richly-cultivated
coastal belts, with
hilly interior
Cultivated coastal
belt with hilly
interior
Annual rainfall
Uni-seasonal 5-20 in.
(humidity always
low)
Uni-seasonal, 15-40
in. (humidity tri-
seasonally low)
Bi-seasonal, 50-100
in. (humidity gen-
erally high)
Uni-seasonal 25-50
in. (humidity tri-
seasonally low)
Tri-seasonal, 25-50
in. (humidity al-
ways high)
Uni-seasonal, 25-100
in. (humidity al-
ways high)
Brucellosis in
Farms
Minor enzootics, or
absent (farms in-
frequent)
Moderate enzootics
(farms abundant)
Moderate enzootics
(farms infrequent)
Minor
enzootics
(farms infrequent)
Minor enzootics, or
absent (farms in-
frequent and well
situated)
Major or minor en-
zootics.
Major
epizootics (farms
abundant)
Villages
Negligible
Do.
Not known
Negligible
Abundant
Negligible
Excepting one abnormal rate of 10 per cent in both cows and buffaloes in northern Central
Provinces, rates in the few farms of torrid central India are 1 per cent or less. Government farms
are rare in the south and west and they seem to be but slightly affected, being mostly well situated
climatically.
A fair number of quasi commercial private farms lie in and around Calcutta and in the coastal
belt of Bombay. The humidity and rainfall here is high and abortion rates in cows and buffaloes
alike may reach 20 per cent per annum, while such outbreaks seem to be getting commoner. On
the other hand, private farms and gowshalas in the drier hinterland at present appear to be neg-
ligibly affected.
Village infection. The effect of climate is better illustrated by the distribution of the disease
in villages. Obviously, in a country the size of India, it has only been possible to examine a few
representative rural areas; nonetheless, discoveries here have been of far greater interest than in
arms. If it is to be believed, for instance, that villages have become infected from farms, it would