Evaluation of official eradication-campaigns data for investigating small-ruminant brucellosis in the province of León, Spain.

Brucellosis official eradication-campaigns data were used to study the epidemiology of the small-ruminant brucellosis infection in the province of León (northwest Spain). Data from three consecutive campaigns (1997-1999) were retrieved from flock sheets from controlled flocks and from other official statistics. In general, flock information was scarce, with a small percentage of contradictory data and other deficiencies that might have affected the campaign results. Nevertheless, unconditional multivariable logistic regression showed four risk factors for brucellosis infection in 1999: larger flock size, higher percentage of flocks in the town that are seropositive and having been brucellosis positive in 1997 and 1998. Despite of the scarcity of data available from official records, they were useful to explain, in part, the extent of the SRB in the province of León in 1999.