Abstract

Background: Brucellosis remains a severe, endemic zoonotic threat in the Algerian steppe. While the "One Health" paradigm is theoretically endorsed globally, its practical implementation in high-risk pastoral regions suffers from a critical, under-documented operational disconnect between human, animal, and environmental health sectors.
Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods eco-epidemiological study in the pastoral interface of Mécheria, Algeria (February–April 2026). To map systemic surveillance bottlenecks, we triangulated quantitative Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) surveys of 25 institutional decision-makers (public health, veterinary, and municipal hygiene), qualitative interviews with local breeders, and direct environmental observations of informal markets and abattoirs.
Results: Findings revealed a profound operational paradox. Despite high cross-sectoral consensus on informal dairy risks, severe knowledge asymmetries persist; medical personnel exhibited a critical blind spot regarding environmental transmission vectors (normalized awareness 0.17 vs. 1.00 for veterinary/hygiene staff). Structurally, manual reporting workflows generate an 84% clinical notification latency, resulting in up to 80% of veterinary and hygiene agents reporting zero intersectoral data exchange. Furthermore, municipal hygiene authorities suffer an 80% deficit in field mobility, paralyzing proactive biosecurity enforcement, while pastoralists actively evade reporting due to fears of uncompensated culling.
Conclusions: The persistence of human brucellosis is fundamentally a failure of systemic architecture, not medical knowledge. Eradication requires transitioning from fragmented, reactive management to automated, digital intersectoral integration to bridge operational chasms and operationalize a true One Health continuum