Epidemiology of toxoplasmosis in Kermanshah province

Background and Objective: Toxoplasmosis is one of the most infectious zoonotic diseases. Worldwide, increasing prevalence of this disease has been reported according to the serology tests. 

The prevalence of this infection depends on geographic conditions, nutritional habits and contact with cats. There is no adequate research on epidemiology of this infection in the Kermanshah province. 

Material and methods: We conducted a  cross sectional study on 1837 subjects. First, the sample was randomly selected from 76 strata, including 47 urban and 29 rural areas from registered statistics in health department, then 25 subjects were selected from each strata and the questionnaire and blood test were collected for each subjects. 761 male subjects and 1076 female subjects were evaluated by IgG-ELISA method.

Results: The results of  ELISA test were 60.8 % negative, 36.4 % positive, and 2.9% suspicious .For males, the tests were 65.3% negative, 32.2% positive, and 2.5% suspicious, whereas for females the tests were 57.5 % negative, 39.3% positive, and 3.2 % suspicious. Most infections were in age group 30-39 years (48.3%). Age group 0-9 years had the least frequency of infections  (16.7%).  Businessmen (45.1%) and housewives (44.5%) had the highest infection rate. The city of Paveh has the highest infection rate (54.5%) whereas Harsin has the least infection rate (7.2%) in this Province.

Discussion: This study indicated 36.4% of the samples were positive with Toxoplasma ELISA IgG. There is different  prevalence rates in different areas of Iran.  The reasons could be differences in climate, diet, contacts with cats, health conditions, etc.