The prevalence of antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii in sheep in the Western Cape, South Africa

Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The prevalence of antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii in sheep in the Western Cape, South Africa
 
Creator Hammond-Aryee, Kenneth van Helden, Lesley S. van Helden, Paul D.
 
Subject Biomedical Sciences; Epidemiology Toxoplasma gondii, Seroprevalence; Ovine Toxoplasmosis
Description The seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies in a sample of 292 merino sheep farmed in a semi-intensive manner in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa, was investigated. Antibody seroprevalence was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Of the total sample, 23 sheep tested positive for T. gondii antibodies (8%; 95% CI: 4.7688–10.9846). There was no statistically significant relationship between seroprevalence and age of the sheep. The highest seroprevalence was found in sheep between 28 and 40 months old; a total of 19 sheep were seropositive by 40 months. No seropositive sheep were found in the age group between 16 and 28 months. The seroprevalence reported in this study is higher than what has previously been reported for the Western Cape (6%) and across South Africa on average (4.7%). As sheep farming is economically significant in South Africa, the presence of T. gondii amongst sheep may pose a production threat to the small-stock industry as well as to public health and food security. We therefore recommend further surveillance to identify high-risk animal populations so that local control measures can be put in place.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor The author acknowledges financial support from the SA MRC Centre for TB Research DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Tuberculosis Research Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Stellenbosch Unive
Date 2015-11-03
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Peer-reviewed Article cross-sectional
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/ojvr.v82i1.993
 
Source Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research; Vol 82, No 1 (2015); 5 pages 2219-0635 0030-2465
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://ojvr.org/index.php/ojvr/article/view/993/1356 https://ojvr.org/index.php/ojvr/article/view/993/1357 https://ojvr.org/index.php/ojvr/article/view/993/1358 https://ojvr.org/index.php/ojvr/article/view/993/1349
 
Coverage Africa — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2015 Kenneth Hammond-Aryee, Lesley S. van Helden, Paul D. van Helden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0
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