Epidemiology, clinical manifestations, laboratory findings and outcome of brucellosis in hospitalized children in Northwest of Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease, which is associated with great economic and general health concerns. This is an endemic disease in Iran, and thus this study aimed to investigate its epidemiology and trend over a ten-year period in children hospitalized in northwest Iran<br /><span>Material and Methods:</span> A retrospective study was conducted on children hospitalized with brucellosis diagnosis in the Children's Hospital. Information of the patients, such as type of living place, age, history of consuming unpasteurized dairy products, family history of brucellosis in the past year, type of contact patterns with livestock, clinical symptoms, Wright's test, 2-mercaptoethanol test, Coombs Wright test and treatment failure, was collected<br />Results: Over a ten-year period, 59 medical records were extracted, out of which 21 subjects (35.6%) were female and 38 (64.4%) male. The mean age of involvement was 80.5 months. In addition, 16.9% and 22% of patients had a history of contact with livestock, and 22% had a history of consuming unpasteurized dairy products. Moreover, 78.6% of patients had Wright's test titers of ≥1:160 and 91.8% had Coombs test titers of ≥1:160. Blood culture results of 19 patients were available, out of which 21.1% were culture-positive<br />Conclusion: Epidemiological studies assessing important risk factors for the spread of brucellosis in different regions across the world are very effective in disease control. Moreover, the results revealed that the serological tests can be used to diagnose brucellosis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report about epidemiology of children brucellosis in northwest Iran.