Brucellosis
Brucellosis
aka Undulant Fever
Brucella are small parasites that can cause acute and chronic disease in both animals and humans. Brucella suis is endemic in Florida's wild hogs.
Feral swine herds in central Florida, where most of the human cases are reported, have an infection rate of about 50%. The rest of the state's hogs have a seroprevalence rate of 10-20%.
Brucella are considered bioterrorism agents due to the fact only 10-100 bacteria are needed to cause infection. In 2009 over 90 Florida lab workers were exposed to Brucella.
Brucellosis is most often spread to humans by eating or drinking unsterilized milk, raw cheese (especially goat cheese), meat products from infected animals, or having close contact with their waste products. Ticks have been known to pass the infection and transmission from human to human (mother to infant, sexual transmission) is possible.
The bacteria, discovered in the 19th century, can be shed from an infected cow at or around the time of calving. Cattle can also harbor the bacteria in their reproductive tracts. Brucella can be transmitted to uninfected dogs through breeding and contact with fetuses of infected animals. Dogs can harbor the bacteria in the genitals, eyes and kidneys. Symptoms of brucellosis in dogs include abortion in female dogs and scrotal inflammation in males. Fever is uncommon.
Brucellosis can infect humans that come in contact with infected aborted tissue or semen from dogs, cattle and other animals. As in humans, the disease is treated with antibiotics, but it is often difficult to cure.
Symptoms can appear within a week or even months after being exposed to the infection. Symptoms in humans may wax and wane and include day and night sweats with odors, headaches, fluctuating fevers, nervousness, weakness, anorexia, arthritis, chills. depression, weight loss malaise, joint pain, insomnia, constipation, impotence, and muscle pain.
Later symptoms from chronic infection may include brain infection (encephalitis), hepatitis, endocarditis (heart), spondylitis, osteomyelitis, prostatitis, anaemia, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, meningitis, uveitis, optic neuritis and neurological disorders.
Mothers who are breast feeding may pass the infection to children. Sexual transmission has been repoted.
Treatment can be difficult and is not always curative. Relapse is common. Antibiotics, or combinations of antibiotics, are used to try to eliminate the infection.