Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infections in swine of non-tecnified rearing farms of the northeastern region of the state of São Paulo, Brazil and associated risk factors

Abstract

Toxoplasmosis is a zoonosis present worldwide. Its protozoal aethiological agent, Toxoplasma gondii, has the ability to infect several homeothermic animals and mainly human beings. The consumption of raw or undercooked meat products containing T. gondii cysts, consumption of vegetables without washing and using non-treated water are risk factors associated to the occurrence of human toxoplasmosis. Furthermore, raw or undercooked pork is an important infection source of T. gondii to humans. Due to the importance of toxoplamosis in public health, this study focused on establish the prevalence of the disease in non-technified swine herds in the northeastern region of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, using Modified Agglutination Test (MAT) and the Indirect Immunofluorescence Assay (IFA) and the risk factors for its occurrence. In addition, the agreement among both diagnostic tests was evaluated. A low prevalence of toxoplasmosis was found at animal level (7.02%). The Fisher's exact test detected correlation between positive cases with the presence of food garden in the farm (p = 0.01) and the use of non-treated water to irrigate the food garden (p = 0.005). The agreement among tests was considered moderate (Kappa index = 0.5). The results show that toxoplasmosis is a risk for humans who consume under cooked pork meat in this region and an acceptable agreement between MAT and IFA tests.