الفهرس 
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Abstract
Human toxoplasmosis is usually mild, subclinical and self limited. However, during pregnancy it is so serious because the infection may spread from the mother to her foetus through the placenta causing severe con¬genital diseases in the foetus which may be fatal. The earlier in pregnancy maternal toxoplasmosis occurs , the greater is the likelihood of severe disease in the foetus .
Hence, the aim in the present work was to study the prevalence of toxoplasmosis among pregnant females during the first trimester using indirect haemagglutina-tion test and immunofluorescent antibody test. The relation between toxoplasmosis in these women and other parameters ( including age, past history of abn¬ormal pregnancy outcome, contact with domestic animals and presence of other parasitic infections ) was also studied . Therefore, 220 apparently normal pregnant women , during the first trimester of pregnancy, their ages ranged between 15-45 years with a mean 26.7 , were chosen randomly from El-Shatby out- patient clinic and subjected to :
1- A questionaire sheet was filled to study some para¬meters , age , residence , clinical symptoms and signs and history of abnormal pregnancy outcome.
2- Examination of stools and urine samples for detection of parasites’ eggs or cysts.
3- Indirect haemagglutination test (MAT), Indirect immunofluorescent antibody test ’(IFAT) and Ig M-IFT were used for detection of Toxoplasma antibodies, the later was used to detect recent infection.
The data were subjected to statistical analysis.
Herein, 57 cases out of 220 (25«9?0 examined preg¬nant women were positive for toxoplasmosis by using one or two serological techniques , 36 out of them were positive by both tests, k7 were positive by IHAT alone and k& were positive by IFAT alone. By using Ig M-IFT , no case was positive for recent infection among the examined women.
It has been found that, in the(20-30 years)age group the incidence of infection with toxoplasmosis is low However, there was no significant relation between prevalence of toxoplasmosis and age.
In the pregnant women with history of abnormal pregnancy outcome , the percentage of infection with
toxoplasmosis was relatively high (21,9%). However, there was no significant association between toxoplasni-osis and abnormal pregnancy outcome (X =1.43 jP.^-0.03). On the other hand , the frequency distribution of higher antibody titres was greater among the women in the abnormal pregnancy outcome group than those with noraal obstetric history. This difference was also non significant.
There were no significant association between toxoplasmosis and contact with domestic animals cats
and dogs)( X =0.004 j P> 0.0.5) and between toxoplasm-
p osis and presence of other parasitic infectionsC X =0.12,
P>o.03 ) •
Regarding the diagnostic value of the two tech¬niques used (THAT&IFAT), it has been found that, the two serological tests revealed the same sensitivity and specificity . Also, significant qualitative and quantitative correlations were found between the results of the two techniques. (X2=37.6 , P < 0.003) (r=0.49,F<0.001).