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Online J Public Health InformOnline J Public Health InformOJPHIOnline Journal of Public Health Informatics1947-2579University of Illinois at Chicago Library ojphi-10-e11810.5210/ojphi.v10i1.8891ISDS 2018 Conference AbstractsEvaluating the burden of brucellosis in hospitalized patients in
Armenia, 2016 Asoyan Vigen *
1

2
Hovhannisyan Alvard 
1

2
Mkrtchyan Anahit 
1

2
Davidyants Mher 
1

2
Apresyan Hripsime 
1

2
Atoyan Lusine 
1

2
Niazyan Lyudmila 
3
1 “Nork” Infection Clinical
Hospital of MOH, Yerevan,
Armenia; 2 Yerevan State Medical University,
Department of Infectious Diseases,
Yerevan, Armenia; 3 CH2M
Hill Armenia branch office, Yerevan,
Armenia* Vigen Asoyan E-mail: ziloras@battelle.org30 5 2018 2018 10 1 e118ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2018. This is an Open Access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting
all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.Keywords 
brucellosisArmeniaepidemiology
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Objective
To understand the disease burden, we studied the epidemiological and clinical
characteristics and associated costs for brucellosis patients hospitalized in Nork
hospital in 2016.

Introduction
Brucellosis, endemic in Armenia, is recognized as a significant public health
challenge with a major economic burden. To address the regional threat of
brucellosis for both animal health and public health, the “One Health
Surveillance of Brucellosis in Armenia” was initiated in December 2016. The
project aims to develop scientifically sound strategies and policies for sustainable
control of the disease.

Methods
In 2016, 265 patients diagnosed with brucellosis were hospitalized at
“Nork” hospital, of whom 16 were 0-14 years old and 94% were males.
Diagnosis was confirmed using agglutination test and ELISA. The SPSS program was
used to analyze the data.

Results
Distribution of the disease by marz revealed that the most cases came from Ararat
(53), followed by Kotayk (49), Armavir (38), Aragatsotn (36), Yerevan (28),
Gegharkunik (26), Vayots Dzor (24), Syunik (8), and Lori (3). Clinical data
indicated that 71% of patients had acute brucellosis with fever, arthralgia and
night sweating while 29% suffered chronic brucellosis with damage of organ systems.
The primary complaints included arthralgia (80%), sweating (60%) and fever (40%).
Joint pain was mainly located in knee, elbow, and sacroiliac regions. Average grade
of fever was 37,9±0,95oC. Total days spent in hospital were 1798,
economic losses for the hospital were estimated at AMD 36 million per year.

Conclusions
Those at the highest risk for brucellosis were males living in Ararat and Kotayk
marzes who work with livestock.