Seroprevalence of Brucella Infection among Pregnant Women in Sana’a City, Yemen

Brucellosis, commonly known as “undulant fever”, “Mediterranean fever” or “Malta fever” is a leading cause of zoonosis worldwide caused by the bacterial genus brucella [1]. Brucella is an aerobic, gram-negative, non-fermenting, facultative intracellular, non-motile, non-spore-forming, cocci, cocobacilli or short rods based on DNA homology and represent a single species [2,3]. It is transmitted to humans by direct or indirect contact with infected animals or their products [1-5]. The entry of the organism is the conjunctiva, respiratory mucosa and damaged skin [6]. Generally the transmission from person to person is uncommon, however the human sources of infection may occur in the following ways: vertical transmission with placental circulation, breast feeding, sexual contact, blood transfusion and bone marrow transplantation [7]. The most common reported symptoms and signs were fever, headaches, fatigue, malaise, chills, sweats, myalgia, lack of appetite, weight loss and arthralgia [8-11]. The first reported brucellosis during pregnancy was in 1908 when (Malta fever), brucellosis, was clinically described [12]. Lately, spontaneous abortions in women might be associated with the isolation of brucella from an aborted fetuses placenta [13,14]. It is believed that brucellosis causes fewer spontaneous abortions in humans than it does in animals because of the absence of erythritol in the human placenta and fetus [15]. Erythritol is a constituent of normal ungulate fetal and placental tissue and, in cases of bovine abortion, promotes overwhelming infection of the fetus and placenta. Additionally, the reason for the lesser role of abortion in human brucellosis is the presence of anti-brucella activity in human amniotic fluid [13]. Volume 1 Issue 1 2017