An investigation of Toxoplasmosis in Free Range chickens, Industrial chickens and Duck in mid Euphrates area of Iraq

Abstract

The current study determined the prevalence of Toxoplasmosis among the free Range Chicken , Industrial Chicken and Duck by using LAT and ELISA .A total of 200 FR Chicken purchased (70 Al-qadisyia province, 65Al-najaf province, and 65 Babylon province), 200 Industrial Chicken purchased from ten Industrial farms in geographical different region of Al-Diwania city and 50 Duck purchased(rural area and bird sale places of Al-Diwania city) were involved in this study , one hundred thirty four (67%) of FR Chicken , Sixty two (31%) of Industrial chicken and twenty eight (56%) of Duck, were diagnosed primarily as Toxoplasmosis by LAT.Out of 90 ( 45 FR Chicken and 45 Industrial Chicken ) of LAT positive cases, only 36% were positive by ELISA which considered as confirmed Toxoplasmosis cases .Results revealed ,that 51.11% and 28.88% of FR chicken and Industrial chicken positive by ELISA respectively.The percentage of T. gondii antibodies in FR chickenby LAT were 71.42%,69.23% and 55.38% in Al-Qadissiya, Babylon and in Al-najaf provinces respectively whereas the percentage by ELISA were 66.66% , 46.66% and 33.33% in Al-Qadisiya, Babylon and in Al-najaf respectively.Although the difference observed in the percentage of T. gondii antibodies among different provinces, there was no significant differences P < 0.05detected by LAT whereas in the ELISA there was significant differences P<0.05.The highest titer in LAT were 1/128 (34.32%) in FR chicken, 1/8 (29.3%) in the Industrial chicken and 1/32(35.7 %) in the Duck, The lowest titer were 1/2 (5.22%) in FR chicken , 1/128 (0%) in the Industrial chicken and 1/4(0%) in the Duck.