Abstract

Brucellosis is generally acquired by the ingestion of raw milk and unpasteurized dairy products. As an infection model, chicken embryos (CE) were used to isolate Brucella abortus from milk cream of eight seropositive cows. One hundred CE, seven to nine day-old, were inoculated and divided into 10 groups of 10 each; eight of them inoculated with milk cream from seropositive cows, one served as a positive control using pasteurized milk infected with Brucella abortus, and one as negative control group. Brucella spp was not isolated from inoculums, but in CE liver and CAM, and by PCR in 3/8 (37.5%) seropositive cows cream milk and from positive control group indicating differences (p < 0.05) and model usefulness. In conclusion CE could be used as an infection model to demonstrate Brucella abortus from seropositive cows’ milk.

Key words: Infection model, cream, inoculums, PCR.