Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii and Bartonella henselase infection in stray cats of the Daejeon City, Korea

Abstract

Abstract : In this study, the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma (T.) gondii and Bartonella (B.) henselae infection amongstray cats in Daejeon City, Korea was surveyed. A total of seven samples were positive (7/118, 5.93%) for T. gondiiincluding three samples from female cats (3/58, 5.2%) and four samples from male cats (4/60, 6.7%). There was nosignificant difference between the genders. A total 22 samples (22/118, 18.6%) were positive for B. henselae; ninewere from females and 13 were from males. There was no significant difference between genders. Nineteen sampleshad a titer of 1 : 50, two samples had a titer of 1 : 100, and one sample had a titer of 1 : 200. The present studyis the first to use serological tests to analyze B. henselae prevalence among stray cats in Korea.Keywords : Bartonella henselae, cat, Toxoplasma gondii Introduction Toxoplasma (T.) gondii is a worldwide endemic intracellu-lar parasite that infects most warm-blooded vertebratesincluding cat, and human [12, 17, 18]. It is generally knownthat cats are a major spreader of this zoonotic agent by eat-ing or direct contacting with feces, soil, food or water con-taminated oocysts or tissue cysts of T. gondii over a period of1~2 weeks [5]. Cat is the only animal that excretes resistantoocysts into the environment and a single cat may excrete 10million oocysts [15]. Recently, several reports on the preva-lence of T. gondii infection in feral cats in local areas, includ-ing Gyeonggi province [9], Seoul [13] and Daejeon [11] havebeen published.A syndrome of fever, malasise, and regional lymphadenop-athy in people that was frequently associated with contactwith kittens or cats was called cat scratch disease (CDS),which is a zoonosis caused by Bartonella(B.) henselase [2, 4,6]. The natural infection with B. henselase is usually asymp-tomatic, or mild clinical signs such as lymphoadenopathy, sto-matitis, renal, and neurological disease in cats [7, 8]. Infectedcats, even if asymptomatic, may be highly bacteremic forseveral months, and can be a risk factor for human infection[3, 6]. In Korea, large numbers of stray cats become a con-troversial issue, due to their uncontrolled overpopulation,public health, animal welfare [11, 19]. Also, they disrupt peo-ple’s sleep, traffic accidents, and this has been a serious issuesince 2000 [12]. The purpose of this study is re-evaluate the seroprevalenceof T. gondii and B. henselae which are zoonotic pathogenthat can be spread by cats in Daejeon by Enzyme-linkedimmunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect immunofluores-cence antibody test (IFAT).