Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Toxoplasma gondii infection in pregnant women in China

2011; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 139; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0031182011001880

1469-8161

Xiaojie Gao, Zhen‐Jiang Zhao, Zhihui He, Tengyao Wang, Tianqi Yang, X.-G. Chen, Jilong Shen, Yishuang Wang, Fengzhang Lv, Geoff Hide, Zhao-Rong Lun,

Cytomegalovirus and herpesvirus research

SUMMARY Toxoplasmosis, caused by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii , is one of the most common parasitic infections in humans. Primary infection in pregnant women can be transmitted to the fetus leading to miscarriage or congenital toxoplasmosis. Carefully designed nationwide seroprevalence surveys and case-control studies of risk factors conducted primarily in Europe and America, have shaped our view of the global status of maternal and congenital infection, directing approaches to disease prevention. However, despite encompassing 1 in 5 of the world's population, information is limited on the status of toxoplasmosis in China, partly due to the linguistic inaccessibility of the Chinese literature to the global scientific community. By selection and analysis of studies and data, reported within the last 2 decades in China, this review summarizes and renders accessible a large body of Chinese and other literature and aims to estimate the seroprevalence in Chinese pregnant women. It also reviews the prevalence trends, risk factors, and clinical manifestations. The key findings are (1) the majority of studies show that the overall seroprevalence in Chinese pregnant women is less than 10%, considerably lower than a recently published global analysis; and (2) the few available appropriate studies on maternal acute infection suggested an incidence of 0·3% which is broadly comparable to studies from other countries.