Brucellosis

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: brucellosis case definition[121]Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Brucellosis (Brucella spp.) 2010 case definition. 2010 [internet publication]. https://ndc.services.cdc.gov/case-definitions/brucellosis-2010 ​​

Clinical description

• Illness characterised by acute or insidious onset of fever and one or more of the following: night sweats, arthralgia, headache, fatigue, anorexia, myalgia, weight loss, arthritis/spondylitis, meningitis, or focal organ involvement (endocarditis, orchitis/epididymitis, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly).

Laboratory criteria for diagnosis

• Definitive:

  • Culture and identification of Brucellaspecies from clinical specimens

  • Evidence of a fourfold or greater rise in Brucella antibody titre between acute- and convalescent-phase serum specimens obtained ≥2 weeks apart.

• Presumptive:

  • Brucella total antibody titre of ≥160 by standard tube agglutination test or Brucella microagglutination test in one or more serum specimens obtained after onset of symptoms

  • Detection of Brucella DNA in a clinical specimen by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.

Case classification

• Probable: a clinically compatible illness with at least one of the following:

  • Epidemiologically linked to a confirmed human or animal brucellosis case

  • Presumptive laboratory evidence, but without definitive laboratory evidence, of Brucella infection.

• Confirmed: a clinically compatible illness with definitive laboratory evidence of Brucella infection.