Abstract:

Background: Brucellosis remains a public health problem worldwide, the existing knowledge on whether brucellosis causes spontaneous abortions than other infections still remains controversial, the fact that Brucella has been recovered from products of conception with evidence of inflammation suggestion greater possibilities of it being involved with recurrent pregnancy loses. This necessitate the need to generate information regarding association between brucellosis and adverse pregnancy outcomes for better diagnosis and management.

Objective: The purpose of the study was to determine the seroprevalence and associated factors of Brucella antibodies among women with bad obstetric history in Mwanza region, Tanzania.

Methodology: A laboratory based cross sectional study conducted in Mwanza region I July 2020 by using 185 archived sera collected from women with bad obstetric history from three health facilities in (SekuoToure regional hospital, Bugando Medical Center and Sengerema district designated hospital) in Mwanza Region. Sera were tested for Brucella abortus and B.melitensis antibodies by using slide agglutination test (SAT) SPSS statistics 20 program was used for data analysis.

Results: The mean age of women in this study was 29.1+6.4 years while the median gravidity was 4+2 pregnancies. More than three quarters of women 181 (97.84%) with BOH reported history of pregnancy loss, with more than half 108 (58.38%) reporting still birth. The seroprevalence of Brucella antibodies among women with bad obstetric history was found to be 16.2%:95% CU: 10.8-21.5. None of the factors was found to be associated with Brucella SPP antibodies seropositivity.

Conclusion: The seroprevalence of Brucella antibodies is high among women with BOH in Mwanza which calls for the need to include screening of Brucella during antenatal visits in endemic areas.