Association of the presence of residual anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgM in pregnant women and their respective family groups in Miracema, Northwest Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

The seroprevalence of toxoplasmosis in 832 pregnant women in Miracema, Rio de Janeiro, was determined and 75.1% (625) The parasite Toxoplasma gondii is one of the most frequent to infect human beings and is found in almost one-third of the world population (Dubey 2004). Patients are frequently asymptomatic and toxoplasmosis has no relevant repercussions on the patient. However, infected fetuses and immunodeficient individuals may present with serious or even fatal clinical outcomes (Gross 1996, Vidigal et al. 2002. Toxoplasmosis infection is transmitted (1) by the ingestion of raw or undercooked meat, which contains tissue cysts of the parasite; (2) through the accidental ingestion of oocysts eliminated in the feces of infected cats; and (3) transplacentary due to the primary gestational infection (Frenkel et al. 1970, Hutchinson et al. 1971, Aspinall et al. 2003, Bahia-Oliveira et al. 2003.The diagnosis of toxoplasmosis is based mainly on serological tests that detect anti-T.gondii IgM and IgG antibodies (Camargo 1995, Pinard et al. 2003, that correspond to acute and chronic infections, respectively. Although IgM anti-T. gondii (IgMTg) tend to disappear, it can remain at low titers for a long period of time complicating the interpretation of the serological diagnosis of the acute phase in that case they are named residual IgM and correspond to the chronic phase of the disease (Bastien 2002, Remington et al. 2004. In order to differentiate the two phases, an important step in defining In the present report, the prevalence of residual IgM in pregnant women from Miracema, Northwest of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Table I) was investigated, as well as the correlation of these antibodies with IgG avidity, in the patients and in their family groups, in order to effectively establish the diagnosis of acute or chronic toxoplasmosis. The studied sample was chosen considering an estimated prevalence (IgGTg) of toxoplasmosis of 75% in order to identify the "n" value necessary to obtain enough seronegative individuals to ensure that 25% of the sample would be candidates for being IgMTg positive during pregnancy. Consequently, in order to determine the sample size, the population of women in the municipally (n = 13521), a prevalence of 25%, an estimated error of 3%, and a significance level of 5% were considered as parameters leading to a minimum sample of 756 pregnant women. Thus, from May 2003-December 2006, 832 pregnant women that visited the municipal public health system were selected and evaluated.Serological tests were performed in order to detect IgMTg and IgGTg antibodies using a commercial enzyme linked immunosorbent assay Diesse® (ELISA) kit in all pregnant women. This technique has 100% and 99.6% specificity and sensitivity, respectively, for detecting IgMTg and has 100% for both analytical parameters for IgGTg. The patients that were IgMTg and IgGTg posi-

Prevalence of Serum Antibodies to TORCH Infections among the Women of Child Bearing Age Visiting National Public Health Laboratory, Teku

“…In a study done in India, it was found to be 13.1%. Lower seroprevalance were found in studies done in other countries (Ribeiro et al 2008, Alvarado-Esquivel et al 2009. Among the women with BOH, prevalence of IgM antibodies against T. gondii was found to be 17.84% which was in concordance with the finding of a comparable study (15.43%) conducted earlier (Lamichhane et al 2007).…”

Toxoplasmosis seroepidemiology in pregnant women in a city in the Northwest region of the Paraná State, Brazil

“…Higher prevalence than that found in this paper was observed in Vitória (ES) (Areal and Miranda, 2008), Porto Alegre (RS) (Spalding et al, 2005), Recife (PE) (Porto et al, 2008) and Miracema (RJ) (Ribeiro et al, 2008), with serological prevalence of 73.5%, 74.5%, 74.7%, and 75.1%, respectively.…”

“…In this paper, the prevalence for IgM anti-T. gondii antibodies was 1.0%, a lower result than that found in researches conducted in Palotina (PR) (Bittencourt et al, 2012), Vitória (ES) (Areal and Miranda, 2008), Londrina (PR) (Mandai et al, 2007), Rolândia (PR) (Dias et al, 2011), Miracema (RJ) (Ribeiro et al, 2008) and Recife (PE) (Porto et al, 2008), which detected 1.1%, 1.3%, 1.7%, 1.9%, 2.0%, and 2.8%, respectively. In the state of Santa Catarina (Sandrin et al, 2012), researchers have found a prevalence of 0.57%.…”

Seroepidemiology of Toxoplasma, Rubella, Cytomegalovirus and Herpes Simplex Virus -2 in Women with Bad Obstetric History. PART I: Toxoplasma and Rubella infections

“…The median of IgG Toxoplasma prevalence was 38.5% [64] for Bangladesh. IgG high rate of detection was reported for Brazil [50] (75%, 832 pregnant women), while the lowest rate was for Thailand [38] (5.3%, 831 pregnant women). IgM lowest rate reported for China [49] (0%, 235 pregnant women) and Vietnam [59] (0%, 300 pregnant women), while the highest rate reported for Ghana [87] (76.1%, 159 pregnant women).…”