Economic losses due to brucellosis in India

The annual economic losses due to brucellosis in different livestock species in India were estimated on the basis of secondary seroprevalence data collected from published peer-reviewed literature and government reports. Meta-analysis was carried out to arrive at the pooled prevalence of Bovine brucellosis. Various components of losses included in the study were reproductive losses (due to abortions and increased infertility), production losses, mortality losses in aborted animals and draught power losses. Simple mathematical models were developed to estimate the component-wise losses, which were arrived at INR 9212 crore. To take into account the possibility of variation and uncertainty in various epidemiological and economic parameters, a sensitivity analysis was also carried out by considering two different scenarios, that is, pessimistic and optimistic. In the pessimistic scenario, annual losses were estimated up to INR 19,041 crore, while in the optimistic scenario these are restricted to INR 3169 crore. The Benefit-cost ratio of brucellosis control through vaccination, under different scenarios, implied economic feasibility of vaccination against brucellosis. The study has thus revealed that Brucellosis, from policy perspective, is one of the most important diseases when it comes to mitigating losses due to diseases in dairy animals.