Ii. Review of Literature

Brucellosis is an important bacterial zoonosis in many developing countries including India. It is primarily a disease of reproductive system of sexually matured animals with concomitant loss in productivity of affected animals. The disease is caused by Gram-negative organisms of the genus Brucella that includes six species. Rodriguez et al. (1992) classified brucellae primarily on the basis of host-specificity. Brucella abortus is the major cause of disease in cattle and buffaloes where as B.melitensis in sheep and goats, B.suis in pigs, B. canis in dogs, B. ovis in rams and, B.neotomae in rodents and B.maris in marine mammals, were reported. Recently, two Brucella strains from marine mammals have been reported (Bricker et al., 2000 and Cloeckaert et al., 2000a) and the proposed names are B. pinnipedae and B. cetacean (Cloeckaert et al., 2003 and Godfroid et al, 2005).