First report of Toxoplasma gondii in camels (Camelus dromedarius) in Ethiopia: bioassay and seroepidemiological investigation

Abstract

BackgroundToxoplasmosis is a major public health concern in many countries of the world. A cross-sectional and follow up experimental study designs were used for seroepidemiological and bioassay studies, respectively from November 2012 to April 2013. The objectives were to estimate the seroprevalence of T. gondii infection, to assess risk factors and to isolate the parasite from camels in the Fentale district, Ethiopia. A direct agglutination test (DAT) and indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits were used to test camel sera. Hearts and tongues (each 25 g) from 31 seropositive camels were bioassayed in mice. Associations between seroprevalence and potential risk factors (collected using a questionnaire survey) were analyzed using logistic regression.ResultsAn overall T. gondii prevalence of 49.62% (220/455) by DAT and 40.49% (179/451) by indirect ELISA test were detected. Herd level seroprevalence of 96.77% (30/31) (95% CI: 83.30– 99.92) by DAT was recorded and it was significantly higher in areas where wild felids are present (P = 0.038). Multivariable logistic regression showed that the likelihood of acquiring T. gondii infection was significantly higher in camels in the Ilala pastoral association [PA] (82.26%) (Adjusted Odds ratio [aOR] = 10.8; P < 0.001) than camels in the Galcha PA (31.43%), in camels of ≥ 8 years old (56.52%; aOR = 1.88; P = 0,033) than camels of ≤ 4 years old (34.26%) and in areas where domestic cats are present (aOR = 4.16; P = 0.006). All camel owners were uneducated, handle aborted fetus with bare hands, and drink raw camel milk. DAT and ELISA tests had moderate agreement (Kappa = 0.41). Viable T. gondii were isolated from 16.13% (5/31) of DAT positive camels. One DAT positive but ELISA negative camel sample gave a cyst positive result.ConclusionsT. gondii infection of camels in the study district is widespread. Age, presence of domestic cats and study PA are independent predictors of T. gondii seropositivity. Isolation of viable parasites from edible tissues of camels and the very poor knowledge of pastoralists about toxoplasmosis suggest the need for prevention of toxoplasmosis through bio-security measures, education and further investigation to unravel the impact of camel toxoplasmosis deserves consideration.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12917-014-0222-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum in Dromedary camels ( Camelus dromedarius ) from Saudi Arabia

“…The seroprevalence of T. gondii was comparable to that reported in previous studies on camels from Saudi Arabia and its neighboring countries (Hussein et al, 1988;Hilali et al, 1998;Wernery et al, 2008;Hosseininejad et al, 2010;Alanazi, 2011;2013;Hamidinejat et al, 2013;Mentaberre et al, 2013). Extremely high prevalence-as high as 90.9% (from Turkey) (Utuk et al, 2012), 67% (from Butana plains, eastern Sudan) (Elamin et al, 1992) and 40.5% (from Fentale district, central Ethiopia) (Gebremedhin et al, 2014)-of T. gondii antibodies in camels have been reported. In our study, the difference in the prevalence of T. gondii antibodies between male and female camels was not significant and was in agreement with that reported in previous studies (Elamin et al, 1992;Wang et al, 2013;Gebremedhin et al, 2014).…”

“…Extremely high prevalence-as high as 90.9% (from Turkey) (Utuk et al, 2012), 67% (from Butana plains, eastern Sudan) (Elamin et al, 1992) and 40.5% (from Fentale district, central Ethiopia) (Gebremedhin et al, 2014)-of T. gondii antibodies in camels have been reported. In our study, the difference in the prevalence of T. gondii antibodies between male and female camels was not significant and was in agreement with that reported in previous studies (Elamin et al, 1992;Wang et al, 2013;Gebremedhin et al, 2014). However, this is in contrast with what has been reported earlier by Hussein et al (1988), who detected significantly higher prevalence of T. gondii antibodies in female camels than in male camels; they attributed this difference to the husbandry practices.…”

Retracted: Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum in different types of raw milk and traditional dairy product samples

“…Occurrence of T. gondii infections due to the consumption of raw milk was also reported from Brazil (da Silva, Câmara, Vinaud, & de Castro, ; Heukelbach et al, ; Santos et al, ), Mexico (Moura et al, ), Egypt (Elsheikha et al, ), and Iran (Fouladvand, Barazesh, Naeimi, Zandi, & Tajbakhsh, ). High importance of camel raw milk samples in transmission of T. gondii to human was also reported (Dehkordi et al, ; Gebremedhin et al, ). Regarding T. gondii prevalence in donkey milk, only three investigations examined its analysis.…”

“…High importance of camel raw milk samples in transmission of T. gondii to human was also reported Gebremedhin et al, 2014). Regarding T. gondii prevalence in donkey milk, only three investigations examined its analysis.…”

Seasonal and Age Distribution of Toxoplasma gondii in Milk of Naturally Infected Animal Species and Dairy Samples

“…They exhibited that the incidence of T. gondii in raw camel, sheep and goat milk samples were 0%, 5.55% and 3.70%, respectively. T. gondii has also been recognized in the milk of numerous hosts, such as goat [22][23][24][25][26][27], sheep [28][29][30], donkey [23,31], cattle [32,33], camel [21,[34][35][36], buffalo [11], cat [37], dog [38], rat [39] and even human breast feed [40,41]. In keeping with this, only consumption of contaminated goat milk was associated with occurrence of human acute toxoplasmosis [42][43][44].Nevertheless, some sero-epidemiological surveys specified significantly association with ingestion of raw milk of other livestock and T. gondii infection [45][46][47][48][49].…”