Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii oocysts through Copro-PCR in cats at Pet Center (UVAS), Lahore, Pakistan.

Toxoplasmosis is a major zoonotic disease of warm-blooded animals caused by Toxoplasma gondii. Cats are the only definitive host and they excrete environmentally resistant T. gondii oocysts in their faeces. Coproscopy was used to detect oocysts of enteric coccidians and then Copro-PCR was employed to test specifically for T. gondii in 470 cat samples. The prevalence of T. gondii oocysts was 2.3% (11/470) based on PCR. We observed 15 (3.2%) of 470 samples positive for coccidian oocysts by microscopy. The presence of Copro-DNA of T. gondii was found significantly higher (p<0.05) in males than females. We tested 11 samples of T. gondii oocysts in which 9 samples were from coccidian oocysts positive samples and 2 samples from negative faecal samples. Our results showed that PCR is the reliable method for the detection of faecal oocysts of T. gondii in cats as compared to microscopy. As per our knowledge, ours is first study for Copro-PCR prevalence of cats' T. gondii oocysts excretion in Pakistan.