Indian Journal of Comparative Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases

Members of the genus Brucella cause widespread disease in animals with zoonotic importance to human beings. During the present study cultures isolated from a vaginal swab and from aborted material from cow, buffalo, goat and bitch were characterized. The isolates from cows and buffaloes were typical of a smooth Brucella whereas the isolates from bitch were identified as rough Brucella species. The 3 isolates from cows and 2 from buffaloes, failed to induce urea hydrolysis, but 4 isolates from goats and 1 from bitch were positive for urea hydrolysis. All the isolates were non motile and failed to produce H ₂S on Motility Sulphide Medium and were negative for indole production and VP test. The isolates obtained from the cows, buffaloes and reference strain B. abortus 544 did not show any growth on the media containing thionin dye, but grew in presence of basic fuchsin and saffranin O. All the isolates recovered from the goats grew in presence of thionin, basic fuchsin and saffranin O, whereas the isolates obtained from the bitch did not show any growth in presence of basic fuchsin and saffranin O, but grew well in medium containing thionin dye. The overall prevalence of Brucella infection as detected in the present study by cultural isolation was 4.03 per cent (10/248), of these 2.94%, 2.63%, 18.18% and 14.28% of Brucella isolates were obtained from cases of abortion and retention of placenta in cows, buffaloes, does and bitch, respectively. Morphological, biochemical and dye inhibition testing indicated that the isolate belongs in the genus Brucella.