Background: The prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in the blood donors has been poorly studied. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of acute and chronic toxoplasmosis in blood products.
Methods: A total of 250 blood products (112 fresh frozen plasma and 138 packed cells) in the Blood Transfusion Institute, Shiraz, Iran were tested for spe-cific T. gondii antibodies (IgG and IgM) by ELISA method in 2013. Positive IgG anti-T. gondii samples were further tested for IgM anti-T. gondii antibody. A posi-tive IgG test with the negative and positive IgM test was interpreted as a chronic and acute toxoplasmosis respectively. The relationship of jobs, blood types, sex, marital status and residency of participants with chronic toxoplasmosis prevalence were statistically analyzed by χ2.
Results: Of 250 samples, 58 (23.2%) and one were positive for IgG anti-T. T. gondii (chronic) and IgM anti-T. T. gondii (acute) antibodies levels respectively. Twenty nine (25.9%) of fresh frozen plasma (FFP) samples were positive for IgG anti-T. gondiiiand 1(0.89%) of them was positive for IgM anti-T. gondiii antibody. Thirty (21.74%) of packed cell samples were positive for IgG anti-T. gondii anti-body. The prevalence of chronic toxoplasmosis was significantly higher in work-ers, farmers, house wives, unemployed and free jobs (P=0.007), people with low education levels (P=0.035) and B type of blood ABO system (P=0.0001). How-ever, there were no significant differences regarding to age, sex, marital status, residency and type of blood products.
Conclusions: There were chronic and acute toxoplasmosis in blood products and the prevalence of toxoplasmosis especially chronic form was high. Therefore screening of blood for T. gondii antibodies may be considered.