seroprevalence of human fascioliasis in meshkin-shahr district, ardabil province, northwestern iran in 2012.

background: the aim of this study was to conduct a seroprevalence survey in meshkin-shahr, ardabil province, north western iran to detect the rate of human fascioliasis in the city and nearby villages. literature shows that no such study has been conducted so far. methods: overall, 458 serum samples were collected by randomized cluster sam-pling method from 153 males and 305 females referred to different health centers of the region after recalling by staff in those centers in 2012. all cases filled out a questionnaire and an informed consent. sera were analyzed using indirect-elisa test. ten μg /ml antigens (liver fluke homogenate), serum dilutions of 1:500 and conjugate anti-human coombs with 1:10000 dilutions were utilized to perform the test. data analysis was conducted using spss software ver. 18. results: nine cases (1.96%) were positive for fascioliasis by elisa test. the sero-prevalence of fascioliasis among females was 1.63% and 2.6% in males. there was no significant difference as regards age groups, sex, job, residency, literacy and con-suming row vegetable. according to job, unemployment subjects had the highest rate of infection as 5.9%. the seroprevalence of infection was 1.52% in illiterate people. as for residency, urban life showed no significant difference with rural life (2.4% vs. 1.42). age group of 40-49 yr old, with 3.3% seropositivity had the highest rate. conclusion: obtained seroprevalence of fascioliasis shows immediate attention of health authorities to the diseases in the area. the adjacent of ardabil province to endemic areas of fasciolosis accentuates this attention.