Toxoplasma Gondii (Nicolle e Manceaux, 1908) Nicole e Manceux, 1909 (Apicomplexa: Toxoplasmatinae): doenças intercorrentes em cães sororreagentes provenientes do Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Abstract

Specialization in veterinary medicine has advanced in recent years, which meets the demand of the human population, which has increasingly interacted with dogs, requiring an efficiency of veterinary clinicians, especially in the study and control of diseases of the elderly dog. In addition, Toxoplasma gondii and its zoonotic disease should be considered one of the most important inferences in domestic animals and humans. Dogs are intermediate hosts, as are humans and other warm-blooded animals. Epidemiological studies in dogs have revealed this widespread etiological agent in the canine population; however, clinical and diagnostic manifestations often overlooked or not recognized by clinicians contribute to the lack of diagnosis, mainly because it is an opportunistic infection and is observed in association with concomitant diseases. Blood samples were obtained from a total of 402 animals treated at the CTIVeterinary, Barra da Tijucana city of Rio de Janeiro, RJ. These samples were used to determine the presence of T. gondii seroreactive animals by IFAT as a cutoff point of 1:16. The presence of T. gondii seroreacts was observed in 42 dogs (10.44%) of the 402 animals examined at the clinic for this study. As a result, age was considered as the most important source of risk for natural T. gondii infection mainly in animals of equal age and over 10 years. Human housing, such as apartments, was significant as a protective factor. It was observed that when several animals inhabit the same space there was no possibility of naturally transmitting the infection between them, with a risk factor of 2.407. The presence of the cat was not important for the transmission of natural infection to dogs under the conditions studied. Diet did not influence the natural infection of T. gondii in the present study, as gender determination was not relevant as a source of infection. There is no difference between the clinical pathology tests indicated to suggest natural T. gondii infection. Of the seroreactive dogs against T. gondii, 25% of them were associated with infectious diseases, 20% of them as associations of infectious, parasitic and degenerative diseases, 20% of animals had infectious and parasitic diseases, while only 15% of animals had only parasitic diseases, another 15% of the animals were associated with other diseases, an association of infectious, parasitic, neoplastic, degenerative and other diseases were observed in 5% of T. gondii positive animals by IFAT. Neoplastic and degenerative diseases were observed in 5% of the animals, respectively. The presence of this etiological agent was not important to trigger a clinical process characteristic of infection with this etiological agent and that its presence was not associated with any clinical disease observed in dogs examined.