Brucellosis trends in Majmaah city, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: A trend of 5-year retrospective study (2016-2020)

Brucellosis, also called Malta fever, is a contagious disease caused by Brucella species and can affect one or more organs of the body. Globally, the number of brucellosis cases in the past five years (2016-2020) is 500,000 infections per year. However, in Saudi Arabia, infections of brucellosis are extremely low in the same past five years with a range of 4,167 infections per year. Therefore, the goal of conducting this cross-sectional study is to measure the prevalence and incidence rates of brucellosis in the past five years (2016-2020) in Majmaah city in Saudi Arabia and compare these rates with national rates of brucellosis in Saudi Arabia. Data of all patients of brucellosis in King Khaled hospital for the past five years (2016-2020) were collected from the hospital’s archives. Statistical analysis system software (SAS version 9.4) was used to clean, edit, and analyze these row data. As a result, incidence rates of brucellosis in Majmaah city in the last five years has been increased and decreased similarly in the line of Saudi Arabia. In 2016, in incidence rate was 78.27 and increased to 90.15 per 100,000 population in 2018. In 2020, that rate has decreased to 62.19 per 100,000 population. This cross-sectional study concluded that brucellosis infection rates among the population of Majmaah city are consistent with brucellosis infection rates in Saudi Arabia.