Seroprevalence of toxoplasmosis among reproductive-aged women in Myanmar and evaluation of luciferase immunoprecipitation system assay

BACKGROUNDS: Primary infection with Toxoplasma gondii during pregnancy can pose serious health problems for the fetus. However, the epidemiological status of toxoplasmosis among reproductive-aged population in Myanmar is largely unknown. Although luciferase immunoprecipitation system (LIPS) assays for serodiagnosis of toxoplasmosis was developed mostly using mouse infection model, had not been tested by using field-derived human samples. METHODS: A total of 251 serum samples were collected from reproductive-aged women, residing in Shwegyin township, Bago region, Myanmar and analyzed with a commercial ELISA kit, as well as in-house LIPS assays. RESULTS: The overall seroprevalence for Toxoplasma gondii infection by the commercial ELISA was 11.5%. No clear risk factor was identified except for being in the younger age group (15–30 years old). Overall, LIPS assays showed low sensitivity when the commercial ELSA was used as a reference test. CONCLUSION: We identified the epidemiological situation of toxoplasmosis in some rural communities in Myanmar. The data obtained here will serve as a primary information for the effort to reduce toxoplasmosis in this region. Although looked promising in the previous experiments with mouse infection model, we found that the reported LIPS procedures need further improvements to increase the sensitivities.