Global, regional, and country seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in pregnant women: a systematic review, modelling and meta-analysis

Efficient health-care for pregnant women require accurate data on the prevalence of toxoplasmosis in pregnancy at global, regional, and country levels. In this systematic review with meta- and modelling-analysis, we searched PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Knowledge, Global Index Medicus, and Africa Journal Online to identify studies that reported enough data to compute the immunoglobulins (Ig) M or G seroprevalence estimates of Toxoplasma gondii in pregnant women up to December 31st, 2018, without any language restriction. The global and regional estimates were done using a random-effects meta-analysis. We included 250 studies with 723,655 pregnant women. The global IgM seroprevalence was 1.9% (95%CI: 1.7–2.3). At the regional level, Eastern Mediterranean had the highest IgM seroprevalence (4.1%, 95%CI: 2.8–5.5) and The Americas, the lowest (1.1%, 0.8–1.4), with a statistically significant difference between WHO regions (p < 0.0001). The global IgG seroprevalence was 32.9% (95%CI: 29.4–36.4). Among WHO regions, The Americas had the highest prevalence (45.2%, 95%CI: 33.4–53.4) and Western Pacific the lowest (11.2%, 7.8–15.1), with a statistically significant difference between regions (p < 0.0001). This study presents a high toxoplasma seropositivity in pregnant women at global, regional and country levels, with a consequential high risk of maternal and congenital toxoplasmosis.