Med. Weter. 73 (11), 736-738, 2017

full text

pdf
Dawid Jańczak, Marcin Świątek, Żaneta Szymańska, Roman Niżnikowski, Elżbieta Gołąb
Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in the dairy goat population from an organic farm
Protozoal infection of T. gondii is a public health problem and also causes serious economic losses in livestock production in many countries. Farm animals from organic farms are more likely to be infected. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii among 50 dairy goats from an organic farm in the northwestern Poland region and to assess the prevalence of parasite DNA in the milk of infected animals. Serological tests performed by direct agglutination of IgG antibodies against T. gondii were positive in 10% of the tested animals. No parasite DNA was detected in the milk from the seropositive goats. However, the number of tested animals was too small to draw significant epidemiological conclusions.
Key words: Toxoplasma gondii, goats, milk, seroprevalence, nPCR, Poland