Evaluation of a direct agglutination test for detection of antibodies against Toxoplasma gondii in cat, pig and sheep sera.

The protozoan parasite is the causative agent of the zoonosis toxoplasmosis. In sheep and goats, it is one of the most prevalent causes of infectious abortion. Also in pregnant women, a primary infection can result in miscarriage. Humans acquire the infection either by ingestion of oocysts excreted by cats, the definitive host of the parasite, or by eating raw or undercooked meat from latently infected animals ( 1988). In Sweden, toxoplasmosis is a notifiable disease, and cases of clinical disease in humans as well as animals must be reported. In both veterinary and human medicine serological assays based on detecting the humoral antibody response of the host against the parasite are used as diagnostic tools. So far, solid phase assays, such as the indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT) and the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), have been widely used to diagnose infection in many species including cats, pigs and sheep ( 1988). However, both IFAT and ELISA require appropriate anti-species specific immunoglobulins (Ig) that must be carefully evaluated for each species prior to use. This makes these assays complicated and time consuming. Consequently, alternative, simpler methods that do not require specific antisera would be of great value. The direct agglutination test (DA), which is based on the principle that formalin-treated organisms agglutinate in the presence of specific IgG antibodies, is such an assay ( 1959). The DA-test is widely used in human medicine as a screening test for infection but it has not yet been thoroughly evaluated for use in veterinary medicine ( 1990).