Serological study of toxoplasmosis in Mazandaran rehabilation centers

Background and Serological studies revealed that toxoplasmosis has world wide distribution. Ït is a zoonosis and humans are infected through contact with infected animal, consuming infected food and congenital infection. Due to the different ways of transmission, prevalence of infection may vary between different groups of people. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of toxoplasmosis in Mazandaran rehabilation centers. 1 200 1 1600 1 800 1 100 1 400 336 individuals (50% of population) were randomly selected from a total of 647 mental patients resided in 10 rehabilitation centers. Five milliliter (ml) blood were taken from each individual and sera were separated. Sera were diluted 1:50 and antitoxoplasma antibody detected using indirect immunofluorescense technique. Positive sera were diluted further to, ,, , and the titer of antibody determined prevalence and its confidence interval (ÇÏ) were calculated. 161 of the subjects were male and 175 female. 77.4% of them were positive for toxoplasma antibody (95% ÇÏ was 72.9-81.9). Prevalence in male was 73.3% (95% ÇÏ was 68.2-78.4) while in female it was 81.1% (a 5% ÇÏ was 72-88.2). The difference of prevalence between male and female was not statistically significant (P<0.01). Prevalence of the disease in 10 different rehabilation centers was not significant either. Çonclusion: Prevalence of toxoplasmosis was 77.4 in Mazandaran rehabilation centers which is the same as in normal population of Mazandaran, therefore toxoplasmosis is not a considerable problem in Mazandaran rehabilation centers.