Brucellosis commonly infects the livestock and the antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise and spreading across cities worldwide.
Last year, a pharmaceutical company in China has accidentally released bacteria into the air after which thousands of people have been tested positive for Brucellosis, a disease that commonly infects the livestock according to the officials.
The health commission of China has released a statement recently which said that at least 3245 have contracted the bacteria in Lazhout, the capital of Gansu province and more than 1000 people are suspected to have the disease.
However, no fatalities have been reported until now since the disease was first diagnosed in November last year in China.
According to the officials, the latest numbers of the infected people are much higher than what was originally reported.
Authorities have traced the leak back to the Zhongmu biological pharmaceutical factory which was using sanitizers and disinfectants. The factory accidentally vented an aerosolized version of the Brucella into the air last summer causing the bacteria to spread across the surrounding area through the air.
Brucellosis is also known as Malta or undulant fever which is a bacterial disease normally found in cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, and dogs according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The disease has also been found in humans, however, it is extremely rare to see the human to human transmission.
This bacterial disease causes symptoms like fever, weakness, weight loss and malaise according to the WHO. It can also cause longlasting illnesses like arthritis and swelling in some of the organs in the body according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The pharmaceutical factory’s work is to make brucellosis vaccines for animals through which the leak has happened in August last year according to China’s Health Commission.
The first brucellosis infection was reported at the Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute in December last year according to the reports from the Xinhua news agency.
The Chinese authorities have already punished the pharmaceutical company by canceling all the permissions for it to make various medicines.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Brucellosis can be treated with a course of antibiotics for two or three weeks.
Brucellosis was fairly common in the 1980s in China and several and vaccines and antibiotics helped the country control the bacteria-originated disease.
However, severe outbreaks have also happened with the brucellosis wrecking havoc with the livestock across the world.
Canada remains the only country to have completely wiped out Brucellosis among the livestock in its states.
By Gayatri Yellayi
