Last week, the Livestock Commercialization Project (LCP) started work with the Uvurkhangai veterinary department to apply a new methodology to find Brucellosis infection in dairy livestock.

Brucellosis is zoonotic disease which means that cattle infected can transmit infection to humans. In Mongolia, infection of herds-wo/men is relatively high, due to the intensive contacts between herders and their cattle. Therefore, the national veterinary services are looking for more effective, yet cheap methods to find Brucellosis in cattle. Once herds with infection are known, the actual control can be more strategically targeted to areas with infected herds.

The pilot phase is conducted at Bat-Ulzii and Khorkhorin soums. The new methodology is known as herd screening. It means that a milk sample is taken from the morning milk of the herd. There is no need to have a milk or blood sample from each individual herd. Sofar, 900 herds were visited, a mixed milk sample taken and tested in the mobile laboratory that was positioned in the field. For herd milk sample tests positive, sampling of individual cattle is needed to understand how many cattle are infected. 

The project will continue to support the veterinary services in further validating this new testing methodology and to apply it other aimags.