Context: More than 3,000 people have been infected by Brucellosis bacterial disease. Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that mainly infects cattle, swine, goats, sheep and dogs.

What is brucellosis?

• Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that mainly infects cattle, swine, goats, sheep and dogs.
• Humans can get infected if they come in direct contact with infected animals or by eating or drinking contaminated animal products or by inhaling airborne agents.
• According to the WHO, most cases of the disease are caused by ingesting unpasteurised milk or cheese from infected goats or sheep.
• Symptoms of the disease include fever, sweats, malaise, anorexia, headache and muscle pain. While some signs and symptoms can last for long periods of time, others may never go away. These include recurrent fevers, arthritis, swelling of the testicles and scrotum area, swelling of the heart, neurologic symptoms, chronic fatigue, depression and swelling of the liver or spleen.
• Human to human transmission of the virus is rare.

Other disease outbreaks since COVID-19

Hantavirus: The hantavirus is not novel and its first case dates back to 1993, according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It is contracted by humans from infected rodents.

African Swine Fever (AFS):

• Amid the COVID-19 lockdown, an outbreak of ASF killed thousands of pigs in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
• ASF is a severe viral disease that affects wild and domestic pigs typically resulting in an acute haemorrhagic fever.
• The disease has a case fatality rate (CFR) of almost 100 per cent.
• Its routes of transmission include direct contact with an infected or wild pig (alive or dead), indirect contact through ingestion of contaminated material such as food waste, feed or garbage, or through biological vectors such as ticks.

Reference: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-what-is-brucellosis-the-disease-that-has-infected-thousands-in-china-6602697/

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