[How many patients with visceral toxocariasis in Russia?]

Based on the results of numerous seroepidemiological surveys of inhabitants in Russia using the Toxocara/IgG enzyme immune test system and supposing that extremely high antibody titers (1:6400 or higher) are an indicator of manifest visceral toxocariasis, the possible number of patients with this infection was estimated in the Russian Federation. The absolute number of the patients is roughly 550,000, the relative rate is 380 per 100,000 population. Children aged 0-9 years were shown to prevail among patients with visceral toxocariasis; among the children, boys are predominant. The paper also provides the percentage of seropositive individuals in various in various foci of Russia and its adjacent states (among the 21,233 inhabitants under study, the mean rate is 6.8% ranging from 0 to 21.5%). Groups at risk for Toxocara canis infection include veterinarians, automobile drivers and fitters, scavengers, among whom the number of seropositive individuals is substantially higher than that in the control group of inhabitants.