**Toxoplasmosis in Livestock and Pet Animals in Slovakia**

Lenka Luptakova, Eva Petrovova, David Mazensky, Alexandra Valencakova and Pavol Balent

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/47810

### **1. Introduction**

74 Toxoplasmosis – Recent Advances

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The health status of livestock largely reflects on the human population. Livestock is important in terms of production of safe foodstuffs or breeding purposes.

Infections caused by pathogenic protozoa give rise to frequent problems mainly in tropical and subtropical regions, where they are widespread. It is reported that up to 4000 protozoa live as parasites. Worldwide, the most prevalent protozoan infection is malaria, while the most prevalent infection in the Slovak Republic is toxoplasmosis, by which the 30% of population are infected on average.

Parasitic pathogenic protozoa largely parasitize intracellularly, the course of these infections is acute, often cause the death. On the other hand, they can progress subclinically. The latent respectively chronic stage can follow the acute form and infections can persist throughout the whole life of the host. The course of the disease mostly depends also on the pathological agents. They stimulate the innate and adaptive immune response of the host. In mostly protozoan infections the immune response is not so sufficiently effective for a complete destruction of the parasite. This situation ensures the survival of the parasite and it is the characteristic feature for mostly protozoan infections.

Since a total elimination of the influence of negative factors (including pathogens) in each animal species is impossible, in the case of an unexpected outbreak of disease the solution is in its rapid and reliable diagnostics. The detection of pathogens as infection agents is carried out in laboratories using multiple techniques. The direct proof of parasite is usually microscopically and it is clear confirmation of infection. In systematic infections where the direct proof of parasite is unlikely serological methods are carried out in diagnostics for detection of antigen or antibody present in the biological samples. Serological methods often

© 2012 Luptakova et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2012 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

don´ t solve the problems of diagnosis in the early stage of infection or in the case of latent infection. For diagnostics of these stages are required more sensitive laboratory methods. In At present molecular methods based on the detection of the nucleic acid are used in the laboratories. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR - standard or quantitative) has wide range of using in the detection of parasites.

Toxoplasmosis in Livestock and Pet Animals in Slovakia 77

fetuses and frequent manifestations of infection including infertility. The first case of manifest toxoplasmosis in sheep with symptoms of encephalomyelitis and tachycardia was described by Olafson and Monlux [3]. Sheep are most frequently infected with *T. gondii* from

*T. gondii* is able to survive and persist in immuno-competent intermediate hosts for the host's life. This is despite the induction of a vigorous humoral and more importantly cellmediated immune response during infection. *T. gondii* has evolved multiple strategies to avoid or to interfere with potentially efficient anti-parasitic immune responses of the host immune evasion includes indirect mechanisms by altering the expression and secretion of immunomodulatory cytokines or by altering the viability of immune cells and direct mechanisms by establishing a lifestyle within a suitable intracellular niche and by interference with intracellular signaling cascades, thereby abolishing a number of

In immuno-competent hosts this parasite activates asymptomatic chronic infection, what make possible its transmission and survival. The infection of *T. gondii* may be lethal for immuno-compromised patients. At the beginning of immune response parasite changes to

environment, i.e. from feed and pasture.

**Figure 1.** *T.* gondii - life cycle

**3.** *T.* **and the immune system** 

antimicrobial effector mechanisms of the host [4].

**4. Non-specific immune response** 

Toxoplasmosis is an acute parasitic infection monitored based on the epidemiological situation in the country. Therefore it is necessary to interconnect an epidemiological monitoring of infection in humans and animals because of a zoonotic character of this infection.

We here review the information available on the seroprevalence of *T. gondii* infection in livestock and pet animals in Slovakia. In addition we discuss the various serological and molecular methods available for the diagnosis of toxoplasmosis (in animals) and suggest a diagnostic approach based our data.
