ABSTRACT: Toxoplasmosis is one of the most common worldwide parasitic disease caused by an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. It is commonly transmitted to humans by accidental ingestion of oocysts voided in cat feces or tissue cyst in meat. Congenital transmission may occurs when an uninfected mother acquires primary infection during pregnancy . The acquired infection is usually asymptomatic, while congenital one may lead to abortion, stillbirth or severe abnormalities in the newborn. A total of 190 pregnant women were interviewed with questionnaire about known risk factors (age, residence and occupational status, raw vegetables and fruits intake, source of drinking of water, milk intake, frequency of meat intake, …show more content…
The collected sera were tested for detection of immunoglobulins (IgG&IgM) against T. gondii using Enzyme Linked Fluorescent Assay (ELFA) with the VIDAS Toxo-competition kit (BioMérieux , France).A total of 70 (36.84%) out of 190 pregnant women sera were seropositive for Toxoplasma gondii specific IgG antibodies, while all examined women were seronegative for IgM. Seroprevalence of T. gondii IgG antibodies in respect to previously mentioned risk factors were statistically non significant (P>0.05).
Key words:Toxoplasma gondii, Seroprevalence, Pregnant women, ELFA, Sebha , Libya
INTRODUCTION
Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intra-cellular protozoan parasite which is widely prevalent in humans, warm-blooded animals and birds throughout the world . It was first described in 1908 by Nicolle and Manceaux in
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Congenital transmission through placenta (mother to child) may occurs during pregnancy in case of acute phase of infection[6].Transmission through injection, blood transfusion or organ transplantation is theoretically possible if the donor has recently acquired a Toxoplasma infection and is parasitemic at the time of blood sampling [7]