Sero-diagnosis of human brucellosis among TB suspected patients

In order to verify the frequency of human brucellosis among a TB suspected population, a study was conducted on the basis of sero-diagnosis of a total of 229 blood samples from TB suspected patients. Serological tests carried out were slide and semi-quantitative agglutination tests. Of the tested samples, 44 (19.21%) were SAT positive and of these, 28 (12.23%) were positive for the semiquantitative agglutination test. Twelve (42.86%) had a brucella titer of 1:80; 14 (50%) had a brucella titer of 1:160 and 2 (7.14%) had a titer of 1:320. The majority of patients positive for brucellosis, exhibiting sero-agglutination titers ranging between 1:40 and 1:320, were of rural background. However, 35.72% persons positive for brucella antibody with titer of 1:160 were from urban localities. Fever (84.48%), headache/dizziness (71.43%) and weakness/fatigue (46.43%) were the most common presenting symptoms among the brucellosis positive patients. The frequency of brucellosis among these TB suspected patients was found to be higher in women (73.91%), as compared to men (52.38%).