Toxoplasma gondii in Milk of Human and Goat from the Desert Area in Central Iran

Esmat  Mohammadi Khamsian; Bahador  Hajimohammadi; Gilda  Eslami; Mohammad Hossein  Fallahzadeh; Saeede Sadat  Hosseini

doi:10.18502/ijpa.v16i4.7873

Esmat Mohammadi Khamsian Research Center for Food Hygiene and Safety, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
Bahador Hajimohammadi Research Center for Food Hygiene and Safety, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
Gilda Eslami Department of Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
Mohammad Hossein Fallahzadeh Center for Healthcare Data Modeling, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
Saeede Sadat Hosseini Research Center for Food Hygiene and Safety, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/ijpa.v16i4.7873

Keywords: Toxoplasmosis; Milk; Human; Goats; Polymerase chain reaction

Abstract

Background: Toxoplasma gondii, an obligate intracellular protozoan, causes toxoplasmosis. The aim of this study was molecular detection of T. gondii in breast and goat milk samples by the molecular method in the central Iran.

Methods: Totally, 300 human' and 200 goats' milk samples were collected randomly from different regions of central Iran in 2018. DNA extraction was performed by the salting-out method. Molecular detection of the parasite was done by nested-PCR using the specific primer pairs. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS 23 using descriptive and Chi-square tests.

Results: Out of 300 human milk samples, 1 sample (0.3%) was infected with T. gondii. Out of 200 samples of goat milk, 11 samples (5.5%) showed infection with T. gondii. The frequency of infection in goat's milk samples was 4.36% in the south and west, 1.9% in northern regions, and 2% in eastern regions of the province. The statistical analysis showed no significant difference between toxoplasmosis and different geographical regions in the province.

Conclusion: Because of the popularity of the goat milk and the transfection probability with the milk to humans, it is recommended to boil milk prior to use. Furthermore, case contamination of T. gondii in the human milk sample showed one of the important paths for infection transmission, which requires further studies.