Serosurvey of Toxoplasma gondii infection in Hungarian sheep and goat flocks

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is one of the most important zoonotic agents in the world. Humans can be infected with tachyzoites of the parasite occurring in unpasteurized milk of infected goats and sheep or with bradyzoites found in infected meat. This protooan infection may result in significant reproductive and therefore economic losses in the sheep and goat industry worldwide. It is considered to be one of the main causes of infectious abortions among small ruminants Before this study no information was available about the incidence of T. gondii infection sheep and goats in Hungary. Therefore the aim of the current study was to detect T. gondii antibodies in the sera of 990 small ruminants kept in different parts of Hungary. Sevenhundred forty sheep and two-hundred fifty goat samples were collected in 21 sheep and 8 goat flocks, respectively. A new commercial ELISA kit (PrioCHECK® Toxoplasma Ab SR ELISA) marketed by Prionics (Lelystand B. V., the Netherlands) has been used for in vitro detection of antibodies against T. gondii in serum samples. Taken into account the sensibility (98.0%) and the specificity (99.6%) of the ELISA kit the true prevalence was calculated with 95% confidence interval. Of the total tested, 449 (60.68%) ewes and 108 (43.2%) does were seropositive for T.. gondii. The true seroprevalence was 53.93% in sheep and 48.22% in goats. In sheep and goat flocks tested these values ranged between 3.7-100% and 1.8-100%, respectively. All the small ruminant flocks had at least one seropositive animal. This kind of serological survey should be extended to other farms of the country including younger animals too, in order to get more data about the epidemiology of toxoplasmosis. It would also be important to check the infection rate of milking animals and to investigate the abortion of pregnant sheep and goats. Further studies would be needed on how to minimize the infection of T. gondii in cats and finally to the intermediate hosts and humans.