[Study of the probable role of the agent of enzootic ovine abortion in infectious human pathology. Preliminary report].

418 workers were surveyed at a meat-packing plant. The presence of complement-fixing antibodies to the causative agent of enzootic abortion of sheep (EAS) was detected in 59 workers (14.27%), brucellosis in 32 workers (7.64%) and Q fever in 5 workers (1.18%). EAS antibodies were found to reach titers of 1 : 10 to 1 : 40 and higher, changing dynamically. The persons found to be seropositive belonged mainly to the workers of the sausage-making, slaughtering, intestinal, subproduct and skin-salting departments, as well as to the workers of the sanitary slaughter-house. Such diseases as acute respiratory infections, pneumonia, arthralgia, arthritis, and in women inflammatory urogenital infections, as well as spontaneous abortions were more frequent among the workers seropositive to the causative agent of EAS than in the control groups. Enzootic halprovial abortion of sheep was suggested to be potentially dangerous for certain groups of workers at the meat-packing plant, but the results of the survey indicate that further research in the fields of the epidemiology, clinical picture and laboratory diagnostics of infectious pathology in persons having contacts with the animals infected with the causative agent of EAS is necessary.