부산대학교 도서관

Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan parasite can infect all warm-blooded animals such as mammals and birds, worldwide. Infection in domestic goats is caused by consumption of oocytes contaminated food and water. Infection due to T. gondii causes reproductive losses in goats and may play a key role in transmission of T. gondii infection to humans due to consumption of milk and meat of infected animals. The present study was aimed at evaluating the sero-prevalence of toxoplasmosis and its associated risk factors in goats of peri urban areas of Faisalabad Punjab, Pakistan. A total of 240 sera samples were collected and tested by Latex Agglutination Test. The results of the study were subjected to Chi square test, relative risk and odds ratio to assess the association of risk factors. According to the results age, breed and purpose of breeding the goats had no association with the prevalence of disease. However, gender, pregnancy, management practices and pen flooring exhibited the association with toxoplasmosis (P<0.05). The other strongly associated risk factors were domestic cats (P=0.001, OR=13.06), use of stagnant water (P=0.001, OR=10.68), number of cats (P=0.001, OR=5.81) and access of cats to food storage (P=0.001, OR=8.96). This study concludes that prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection is still high in goats of Faisalabad Punjab, Pakistan. The highest seroprevalence of T. gondii was recorded in autumn (29.5%) and the lowest in spring (10.3%). This infection is transmitted to humans through contaminated milk and meat posing a serious public health problem. Awareness about risk factors in farmers can be helpful to reduce this serious infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]