Abstract
Child Toxocariasis (CT) is one of the most important helminthic parasitic diseases in Iran. The current study was aimed to determine the seroprevalence of toxocariasis in children in Zahedan, southeast of Iran. In this cross-sectional study, serum samples of 373 children aged 3–13 years old referred to health centers in Zahedan were collected randomly with criteria based on the parameters that were used in earlier studies and examined for anti-Toxocara antibody using a commercial ELISA kit. Of the 373 recruited subjects, 206 (55.2%) were male and 167 (44.8%) were female. Most of the subjects (36.5%) were in the age group 3–4 years old. Anti-Toxocara antibodies were detected in the sera of five out of 373 individuals, corresponding to a seroprevalence rate of 1.3%. A significant correlation was found between the incidence of disease and eosinophilia, a history of contact with dogs or cats, as well as the consumption of raw vegetables and drinking of contaminated water. There was no significant correlation between prevalence and gender or age. The finding of this study revealed that the prevalent CT is relatively low in Zahedan region. The rate of CT infection in the southeast of Iran was lower than the rate in other parts of Iran.
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Funding
This study was financially supported by the office of Vice-Chancellor for research of Zahedan University of medical sciences (Grant No. 6464). The study has been the subject of an MSc medical parasitology thesis (Shahraki Majid).
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Salimi Khorashad, A., Shahraki, M., Rahmati Balaghaleh, M. et al. Seroprevalence of Toxocara spp. in children (3–13 years old) in Zahedan, Southeast of Iran. J Parasit Dis 45, 449–453 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12639-020-01320-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12639-020-01320-7