A SEROEPIDEMIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF TOXOCARIASIS IN FORESTRY WORKERS IN BULGARIA

Determination of professional activities, which are connected with higher risk of toxocariasis, is very important for well-timed diagnosis and prevention. That is why our research aimed to investigate the spread of toxocariasis in people, whose professional activities are related with forests. Thirty-three people are included in the study - eight employees of Forest Research Institute at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, and 25 forestry workers from three different locations in South Bulgaria. The specific parasitological diagnosis of toxocariasis is performed with ELISA and Western blot. Presence of anti- Toxocara IgG antibodies in ELISA was established in eleven forestry workers. This reveals very high seroprevalence of toxocariasis among this profession - 33.3%. Moreover, the examination of 15 sera (11 with positive and 4 with borderline ELISA results for toxocariasis) with Western blot showed the presence of two and more antigen bands in 11 samples (33.3%). These results show that professional activities in the forest could be defined as risk factor for development of toxocariasis.