Background: The risk factors for human toxoplasmosis infection are numerous. The purpose of this work is to recognize these risk factors in childhood.
Methods: A total of 727 children was prospective studied ranged in age from 2 to 14 years. In all children Toxoplasma-specific antibodies was investigated and we make an epidemiological questionnaire about risk factors of toxoplasmosis: house, school, contact with cats and food. The prevalence of antibodies is analyzed and an univariate, and multivariate analysis is performed.
Results: The overall prevalence is 42.8%, 27.9% in 2-years-old children and 58.1% in 14-years-old children. The univariate analysis is statistically significant in females, ground-floor house without backyard, no urbanized house, domestic cat, cat in another home which is frequently visited, children under 4-years-old playing with cat, cat close to ground-floor house without backyard. In our study, ground-floor house without backyard equals to no urbanized house (OR: 49.5). This house showed a strong association with cat close to the house (OR: 6.9). The best model of logistical regression that adjusts with our data was domestic cat (OR: 1.6), cat in another home (OR: 1.5), female (OR: 1.7), no urbanized house (OR: 2.2) and children over 7-years-old (OR: 1.7).
Conclusions: In our study, the prevalence of Toxoplasma-specific antibodies is high. The risk factors that we found are associated with contact with cat, female and children over 7-years-old. The only house that showed significance was no urbanized house, associated with cat close to the house.
[Risk factors for toxoplasmosis in children]
[Category] 조류인플루엔자,
[Source] pubmed
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