A cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted to assess the awareness of zoonotic diseases in farmers, agricultural workers, butchers, students and in employees of state government and private organizations. The questionnaire was designed to obtain information on awareness about zoonotic diseases, source of infection, modes of transmission and hygienic practices followed by the respondents. A total of 1985 respondents were selected from Proddatur and 8 surrounding villages of Proddutur, YSR Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh, India. All the respondents participated in this study can read and write in their local language i.e. Telugu. Among the respondents only 28.06% were having some awareness about zoonotic diseases. All the participants of this study were known about the dangerous zoonotic diseases i.e. rabies (100%) and this was followed by bird flu (25.89%) and swine flu (18.58%). The employees from veterinary and medical and health departments of state government have knowledge about bovine tuberculosis (4.93%) which can be transmitted from infected cattle and exclusively the employees of veterinary and animal husbandry department were aware about the diseases brucellosis (94.04%) that may be transmitted from cattle, sheep and goats. Among the respondents the transmission of zoonotic diseases through consumption of milk (14.10%) and meat (18.58%) was also low. Hygienic practices followed by the farmers during cleaning of udder while milking and during cleaning of sheds were also considered to be negligible. 8.46% of the respondents were owned the dogs and among them 58.33% of them feed their dogs with raw offal and 66.67% of them allow their dogs freely in their premises. This low percentage of awareness about zoonotic diseases and lack of awareness about the hygienic practices to be followed to protect themselves make the respondents of this study as a vulnerable group to expose to the zoonotic diseases. Bringing awareness among the public about the threat to them through zoonotic diseases, their modes of transmission, prevention and control measures should be considered as most important to protect them which should be done by the veterinary and human health care professionals.
