Molecular and Serological Characterization of Toxoplasma gondii in Women in Wasit Province

The present study was conducted during the period from October 2013 to May 2014 in Wasit Province to detect the T. gondii in women using molecular and serological methods. Five hundred blood samples and 8 placenta specimens were collected from suspected women. The sera samples were separated and examined by ELISA to detect Toxoplasmosis serologically. In addition 89 blood samples and 8 placental tissue samples were subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique to detect for molecular identification. The Serological results showed that 17.8% of women were positive for the private screening ELISA detects toxoplasmosis (17 % with chronic infection and 0.8% with acute infection). Moreover, it was noted that the highest rate of infection was in women who ranged in age between 20-29 years, reaching 19 .9%, but with no significant difference (P>0.05) between the ages studied. The study indicated a lack of months effect on the distribution of parasite infection rates where these different months recorded relatively close rate ranged between 14.45% - 23.07% with no significant difference (P<0.05). Regarding to polymerase chain reaction test, when a fragment of 399bp was amplified from B1 gene, the result showed that 6.74% of blood samples and 100% of placental tissue samples were positive to this test. In Conclusion the Toxoplasma infection in women was relatively high in Wasit Province.