Frontiers in Microbiology
Frontiers in Microbiology
5 years ago

Seroepidemiology and Risk Factors of Toxoplasma gondii Infection among the Newly Enrolled Undergraduates and Postgraduate Students in China.

Anhe Wu, Ying Feng, Xiaoyu Sang, Jiaqi Li, Dawei Wang, Chenghuan Li, Mengen Xing, Ning Jiang, Qijun Chen, Na Yang
Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular zoonotic parasite, infecting warm-blood animals including humans. Previous serological surveys of T. gondii infection have focused on people of different occupations and special groups, such as slaughterhouse workers, AIDS patients and pregnant women. To investigate the potential impact of T. gondii infection on the health of young students, the prevalence of T. gondii infection and associated risk factors among the newly enrolled undergraduates and postgraduate students were investigated. A total of 3,569 newly enrolled students (age range: 15- to 37-years-old, median 26 years) from various regions of China were recruited in this study. The serum samples were tested for the presence of T. gondii specific IgG by the modified agglutination test (MAT). Questionnaires were used to collect information on risk factors for T. gondii infection. Sixty-five (1.82%) out of 3,569 participants were seropositive for IgG antibodies to T. gondii by MAT (titer≥1:20). Four variables were found to be positively associated with T. gondii infection, including primary geographical location, living in rural areas, gardening or agriculture, and drinking unboiled water by the univariate logistic regression, and only gardening or agriculture was the independent risk factor for T. gondii positivity by using multivariate logistic regression in this study, which may provide information to guide future research and control policies.

Publisher URL: http://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.02092

DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.02092

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.