Isolation and Diagnosis of Toxoplasma gondii among Abortive Women Attending Salah al-Din Hospital and Emergency Hospital in Iraq

Abstract

Toxoplasmosis is caused by Toxoplasma gondii parasite .this parasite is one of the main causes of miscarriage in married women in Salah al-Din Governorate. This study is aimed to diagnose the parasite by isolating it from the tissues of the uterus and placenta for aborted women, in Salah al-Din Hospital and Emergency Hospital . Also, the study was interested in highlighting some important data about abortions and its relationship to the proportion of infection such as profession, age, type of housing, contact with cats and some blood picture tests, in addition to some other important data.
The study was conducted in Salah Al-Din General Hospital and the Emergency Hospital (from July 2019 to January 2020), the study included 100 aborted women aged between (20 - 45 years), and to obtain the required information a special questionnaire was using for each aborted woman.
The latex test (LAT) and ELISA-IgM agglutination tests were used to compare the sensitivity of these tests in detecting infection. The results showed that the isolation was performed in 6 samples from a total of 58 samples with a rate of 10.34%, and the study also showed that the percentage of infection was 42% among abortions using the latex test and 7% in the ELISA test.
The results of the study showed that the highest incidence of infection was during the first three months of pregnancy and that the most frequent cases of miscarriage were within the twice abortion. It was found that the proportion of infection in the 20-30 age groups was higher than the other age groups, as was the higher rate for uneducated women living in rural areas.