Seroepidemiology of Toxoplasma gondii infection in psychiatric inpatients in a northern Mexican city

BACKGROUND: Patients with psychiatric disorders were found to show a high seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection. There is scarce information about the epidemiology of T. gondii infection in psychiatric patients in Mexico. Therefore, we sought to determine the prevalence of T. gondii infection and associated socio-demographic, clinical and behavioural characteristics in a population of psychiatric patients in Durango City, Mexico. Seroprevalence in patients was compared with that obtained in a control population. METHODS: One hundred and thirty seven inpatients of a public psychiatric hospital and 180 controls were examined for the presence of IgG and IgM antibodies against T. gondii by enzyme-linked immunoassay (Diagnostic Automation Inc., Calabasas, CA, USA). The control population consisted of blood donors of a public blood bank and elderly persons attending a senior center in the same city. Age in controls (42 years +/- 20.2) was comparable with that of the psychiatric patients (43.7 years +/-13.8) (p = 0.42). Socio-demographic, clinical and behavioral characteristics from the patients were also obtained. RESULTS: Anti-T. gondii IgG antibodies indicating latent infection with T. gondii was found in 25 (18.2%) of 137 psychiatric inpatients and 16 (8.9%) of 180 controls (p = 0.02). Ten (26.3%) of 38 schizophrenic patients had latent infection and this prevalence was also significantly higher than that observed in controls (p = 0.005). Prevalence of anti-T. gondii IgM antibodies was comparable among patients and controls (4.4% vs 2.2%, respectively, p = 0.22). Multivariate analysis showed that T. gondii infection in inpatients was positively associated with sexual promiscuity (adjusted OR = 15.8; 95% CI: 3.8–64.8), unwashed raw fruit consumption (adjusted OR = 5.19; 95% CI: 2.3–11.3), and a history of surgery (adjusted OR = 6.5; 95% CI: 2.6–16), and negatively associated with lamb meat consumption (adjusted OR = 0.26; 95% CI: 0.10–0.63). CONCLUSION: In the present study, psychiatric inpatients in Durango, Mexico, in general and schizophrenia inpatients in particular had a significantly higher prevalence of T. gondii infection than the control group. Results suggest that unwashed raw fruit consumption might be the most important route of T. gondii transmission in our psychiatric inpatients while lamb meat consumption the less important. Additional studies will have to elucidate the causative relation between infection with T. gondii and psychiatric disorders

Seroprevalence of selected viral, bacterial and parasitic infections among inpatients of a public psychiatric hospital of Mexico

We sought to determine the frequency of serological markers of selected infections in a population of psychiatric patients in Durango City, Mexico, and to determine whether there are any epidemiological characteristics of the subjects associated with the infections. One hundred and five inpatients of a public psychiatric hospital of Durango were examined for HBsAg, anti-HCV antibodies, anti-HIV antibodies, anti-Brucella antibodies, rapid plasma reagin and anti-Cysticercus antibodies by commercially available assays. Anti-Cysticercus antibodies were confirmed by Western blot and HBsAg by neutralization assay. Epidemiological data from each participant were also obtained. Seroprevalences of HBsAg, anti-HCV, anti-HIV, anti-Brucella, rapid plasma reagin and anti-Cysticercus antibodies found were 0.0%, 4.8%, 0.9%, 0.0%, 1.9%, and 0.9%, respectively. Overall, 9 (8.6%) inpatients showed seropositivity to any infection marker. We concluded that our psychiatric inpatients have serological evidence of a number of infections. HCV is an important pathogen among our psychiatric inpatients. Health care strategies for prevention and control of infections in Mexican psychiatric patients should be considered