DOI: 10.36347/sjavs.2017.v04i11.002

Pages: 442-451

Brucellosis is a global zoonotic disease of public health importance to both humans and animals. Lack of knowledge about brucellosis may increase the risk of contracting the disease. A survey was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the slaughterhouse and community animal health workers in Wau Municipality, South Sudan. Between December 2015 and January 2016, a survey using mixed method was carried out among slaughterhouse and community animal health workers. The study participants were interviewed using pre-tested questionnaire. The overall knowledge, attitudes and practices of the participants were assessed using the mean score of each dependent variable as a cut-off. Having score above or equal to the mean of each dependent variable was considered as having a high level of knowledge, or having positive attitude and good practices towards brucellosis prevention. Out of 77 study participants (79.2% slaughterhouse workers and 20.8% community animal health workers) only (39 %) had ever heard about brucellosis. 68.8% and 96.4% mentioned joint and leg swelling as a common sign of brucellosis in humans and animals, respectively. Taking the mean knowledge as the cut off value, 85.7% of the study participants had low level of knowledge about brucellosis, 89.6% had positive attitudes and 59.7% had good practices towards brucellosis prevention, knowledge of brucellosis was significantly associated using Chi-square test with age (p = 0.01), marital status (p = 0.01), education (p = 0.02), occupation (p = 0.01) and duration in work (p = 0.02) respectively. Majority of participants did not know about brucellosis in both humans and animals. Moreover, overall knowledge of respondents was low although they indicated positive attitude and good practices towards brucellosis prevention. There is a need for provision of health education that requires collaboration between public health and veterinary services to raise awareness among the study population.