Sero-prevalence of TORCH infections among pregnant and non-pregnant women using different Immunological techniques in Erbil city, Kurdistan region / Iraq

Abstract

The present study was conducted to detect the sero-prevalence of anti-TORCH antibodies ( Toxoplasma gondii , Rubella virus, Cytomegalovirus, Herpes simplex virus type 2) among pregnant and non-pregnant women from different ages (18≥48 years) in Erbil city and their relation with, age, infertility, gestational period and miscarriage using ELISA and One-step TORCH tests. A total of 313 sera samples (150 pregnant and 163 non-pregnant) were enrolled in the study. The age group 18-27 years showed the highest seropositive IgG by Elisa test, which were, 21, 20, 17 and 13% for Rubella, CMV, HSV-2 and Toxoplasma gondii, respectively. The Seropositive for Elisa TORCH –IgM test/seropositive for one step TORCH- IgM test was 45/14%. The relationship between age and TORCH infection was significant (P<0.5), especially among women aging from 18 to 27 years, also significant (P˂0.5) relations were observed in the comparison of Elisa test with one-step TORCH test for detection of TORCH infections. In infertility cases high rate of T. gondii was observed among other TORCH infections. Also, high rates of TORCH positive were observed in the 1 st trimester groups, whereas, different percentage occurred among miscarriage women of both groups. Hence, it could be concluded that Elisa test is more efficacious than One-step TORCH panel test. The rate of chronic TORCH infection was the highest among young aged women especially Rubella while T. gondii was the highest among infertility cases. The current findings demonstrated a causative relation between TORCH, miscarriage and trimesters