author(s)
Showkat Ahmad Ahanger, Muhammad Maroof Shah, Tanveer A Rather, Mubashir Ali Rather, I Amani, SN Magray, Aabeen Sakina, Raheeqa Razvi, Umer Bashir and Umar Amin Gilkar

abstract
A prospective and retrospective study was conducted to determine the seroprevalence of ovine Brucellosis in Kashmir valley. The data spanning over five years (2015-16 to 2019-20) maintained at Disease Investigation Laboratory Nowshera, Srinagar, were collected and utilized to estimate seroprevalence of ovine Brucellosis in Kashmir valley. A total of 20165 sera samples were collected from organized and unorganized sectors of Kashmir valley. The samples were screened serologically using modified Rose Bengal Plate Test (mRBPT), Micro Agglutination Test (MAT) and Indirect Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (iELISA). The overall seroprevalence of ovine brucellosis of 17.38% in Kashmir valley was observed in the present study. The seroprevalence of 11.03%, 19.13%, 24.88%, 13.07% and 12.64% was observed during 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20, respectively. The prevalence of ovine brucellosis was significantly (p<0.01) higher in organized sector (18.69%) than un-organized sector (16.00%). The effect of year was also highly significant (p<0.01) on the seroprevalence of ovine brucellosis. The results suggested a high prevalence of ovine brucellosis in Kashmir valley. Therefore, an appropriate control policy is required at ground to reduce its economic and zoonotic impact.