Detection of Toxoplasmagondii Infection among Pregnant Women in Hail, Saudi Arabia

Toxoplasmosis is caused by infection with intracellular protozoa parasite T. gondii. One form of the disease, congenitally acquired toxoplasmosis, can result in sever central nervous system malformation or perinatal mortality. Other forms of the disease range from chronic, asymptomatic toxoplasma infection to ocular infection and adult disseminated cerebral toxoplasmosis. This research shows the number of cases which examined in the regional lab in Hail region, 5537 samples for women in the first few months of pregnancy has been tested for toxoplasmosis by using ELISA technique 1621 samples show positive result for TOXO-IgG which constitutes 9.8 % of the total samples, which indicates that the 68 % of pregnant women have an old infection. In addition, the samples were examined by TOXO-IgM to find out the number of pregnant women that have been infected by toxoplasmosis recently, the study show 17 pregnant women positive for TOXO-IgM, this means that 0.3 % of pregnant women are infected by Toxoplasma parasite recently.