seroepidemiological investigation of toxocariasis in the isparta region of turkey

background: toxocariasis is a common disease around the world. our objective was to determine toxocara seroprevalence in humans in the city of isparta, southwest turkey, in respect of some determinants such as age, socio-economic level, residence in city center or rural area etc. methods: five hundred and thirty four individual participants from isparta center and 85 from asagi gokdere village were included in the study. t. cati specific antibodies were ana­lyzed using excretory-secretory (es)-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (elisa) method. results: t. cati antibodies were detected as positive in 73 (13.6%) of 534 samples which were collected from subjects living in the city center and 24 (28.2%) of 85 samples from asagi gokdere village. toxocara seropositivity was detected among 15.6% of whole study group. the seroprevalence of toxocariasis was significantly higher among subjects from vil­lage than in subjects from city center ( p =0.001). while gender, high school education, source of the water which is used, family income and geophagia/eating nail behaviors were the fea­tures which were detected as being associated with toxocariasis seropositivity (odds ratios= 0.5; 6.52; 3.61; 0.43; 0.13 respectively), owning dogs or cats and  hand washing were de­tected as being not associated with toxocariasis seropositivity ( p > 0.05). furthermore, toxo­cara seropositivity was significantly higher among subjects in 0-10 than >40 year-old group ( p =0.02). conclusion: it can be suggested that untreated lost pet population, environmental contamination, and way of life have influence on the epidemiology of toxocariasis.