Determination of seroprevalence rate of Toxocara canis in 6-15 years aged rural and urban school children in Ahvaz, Iran

ABSTRACT

Toxocariasis is a worldwide zoonosis caused by the acaridae of dogs and rarely cats. Seroprevalance of toxocariasis vary with geographic regions. In this study, the sera of school children aged between 6 to 15 years were examined for the presence of anti T.canis antibodies. In this descriptive cross-sectional study the sera of 203 randomly selected school children aged between 6 to 15 years from urban and rural regions in Ahvaz, south western of Iran from 2007 to2008 was examined by means of ELISA with excretory-secretary antigen of infectious larva stage. CBC was performed for the presence of eosinophilia or hypereosinophilia. A short questionnaire was fulfilled to obtain data of age, sex, history of pica, contact with dogs and living area [urban or rural]. Of total 203 students 90 [44.3%]were female and 113 [55.7%] were male. 86 [42.9%] were rural and 114 [57.1%] were urban, 67 [33%] had contact with dogs,35 [17%] had history of recent cough,5 [2.5%] had pica, on had hypereosinophilia but 21 [10.3%] had eosinophlia, 4 [2%] had positive ELISA for T.canis IgG, of them one was male and three were female, two were urban and two were rural, non had history of contact with dogs, pica, chronic cough or asthma, and also non had hypereosinophilia but all had eosinophilia. Our study showed that toxocariasis is present in the school children of Ahvaz, but it is lower than was expected and also lower than similar tropical regions