Prevalence of toxoplasmosis among pregnant women in Najaf city

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is globally distributed pathogen for human cause significant morbidity and mortality in developing fetus , in pregnant women toxoplasmosis is an important cause of abortions and stillbirth after primary infection . Therefore , the diagnosis of this infection is essential to prevent complications . This study was performed in order to evaluate the prevalence  of toxoplasmosis in pregnant women and to study some factors that influence toxoplasmosis transmission . Among 260 sera samples tested using  enzyme Linked immunosorbent assay(Elisa) . The seroprevalence of IgG which refer to chronic infection of Toxoplasma was (30.76 % )(80 out of 260 ) and IgM  which refer to acute infection of Toxoplasma was (11.92%) (31 out of 260) . The present study demonstrated, that toxoplasmosis is more common among  age group (25- 34 ) years ,and there is no statistically significant difference between of Toxoplasma infection and occupation of pregnant women , and there are significant role for the environmental and personal factors on Toxoplasma transmission , the study showed that the cats exposure woman were most affected by Toxoplasma ( 37. 5 %) and the pregnant women who not using disinfectant were more affected (42.51%) and the pregnant women who depending in their feeding on restaurant more frequent to infection with Toxoplasma (46.95%).