Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii Infection in Diabetic Patients at Kirkuk province

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is an important opportunistic parasite in immunocompromised people .On other hand , diabetes is the disease affecting in immune system and minimizes cellular and humoral immunity. Both toxoplasmosis and diabetes are very common in Iraq and other countries. The main aim of the current study was investigated the seroprevalence of anti-Toxoplasma gondii antibodies IgG and IgM in the blood of diabetic patients attending Azadi Teaching Hospital, Kirkuk General Hospital within Kirkuk province for the period of January 2016-February 2017 , with a group of non diabetic patients to serve as a control group . The Enzyme Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay ( ELISA) technique was implemented to detect the antibodies for Toxoplasma gondii in the sera of 100 patient with diabetic and 45 non diabetic apparently healthy control. A total of 100 sample obtained from diabetic patients (44 male and 54 female with age range (20-60 years) were examined for the presence of toxoplasma antibodies the results showed , 31 cases (31%) were positive included 10%  for IgM and 21% for IgG , None of the apparently healthy controls showed seopositivity for T. gondii IgM antibodies but seopositivity for T. gondii IgG antibodies were in 5 cases(11.11 %). The relationship between diabetes and T. gondii was evaluated using chi-square test ( P< 0.05) and ( P< 0.01).  As long as the diabetes lowers the immune response, it may pave the way to toxoplasmosis so our hypothesis is that toxoplasmosis paves the way for diabetes and diabetes paves the way for diabetes but this depends on which one establishes first.