Abstract
Brucellosis poses a significant danger for the health of humans and animals. Wild mammals, especially wild boars and hares, are the main reservoir of infection in nature. Ukraine is free of brucellosis in farm animals, but this disease still unknown in wild fauna. The aim of our work was to conduct serological research on brucellosis among wild boars and hares in different regions of Ukraine and analyze the results of the investigation. Authors present the results of serological screening performed by complement fixation test (CFT) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA, ID.vet) over 2020. In total, 411 blood serum samples from forestries in 13 regions of Ukraine and 220 samples - from 24 regions, respectively, were tested and analyzed from wild boars and hares. In addition, the differential diagnosis on yersiniosis performed by the ELISA (INDICAL Bioscience). Positive reactions on brucellosis in wild boars were registered in 11 investigated oblasts. In summary, 21 (5.1%) sera samples tested positive to Brucella spp. by CFT. By ELISA, positive reactions detected much more - 64 (15.6%) due to the significant number of hemolyzed samples (109 samples tested only by ELISA). In hares, brucellosis antibodies were detected in animals from two oblasts. Positive reactions were registered in 1.8% of samples by CFT and in 1.4% by ELISA, respectively. However, because of possible cross-reactivity between antibodies for brucellosis and yersiniosis in brucellosis serological tests, we cannot exclude that some of the animals were infected by Yersinia enterocolitica O:9 and not Brucella spp. Antibodies were not detected in hare samples. The perspectives of further research regarding brucellosis in Ukraine should improve the differential diagnosis between brucellosis and yersiniosis. Future studies may include the use of molecular methods and expansion of epizootic monitoring in wild fauna of Ukraine.
