The objective of this study was to investigate the presence of anti-T. gondii in goats raised on farms in the Jenin and Tulkarm districts in the north of Palestine. The investigation was conducted on 14 herds comprising of 280 goats. Blood samples were collected via the jugular veins of 151 goats during the period from January to December 2011. The indirect ELISA test was used for the detection of anti-T. gondiiantibodies. Results showed that an anti-T.gondii IgG antibody was detected in 13.4 % of the samples. The presence of the anti-T. gondii antibody was influenced by the location of the goat herds. The highest incidence was in Jenin district (17.44 %) while it was 7.69 % in Tulkarm district. These results indicated the possible contamination of meat and milk of the goats with this parasite, which in turn negatively affects human health.
To establish an edible HPV16 vaccine, we constructed a recombinant HPV16 L1-expressing Schizosaccharomyces pombe yeast strain (HPV16L1 yeast). A preliminary study revealed that freeze-dried yeast cells could be delivered safely, and were digested in the mouse intestine. The freeze-dried HPV16 L1 yeast was administered orally as an edible vaccine, with or without the mucosal adjuvant heat-labile toxin LT (R192G), to 18 female BALB/c mice. After the third immunization, none of the mice that received the edible HPV16 vaccine showed specific antibody responses, whereas all of the positive controls that were administered intranasally with 5 g of HPV16-virus-like particles (VLP) had serum IgG, and genital IgA and IgG that reacted with HPV16-VLP in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). When a suboptimal dose (1g) of HPV16-VLP was administered to all the mice, including the negative control mice, 50% of the mice that were pre-immunized with the edible HPV16 vaccine showed positive serum IgG responses, while none of the negative controls showed any response. Vaginal IgG and IgA antibodies were also elicited in 33 and 39%, respectively, of the mice that were given with the edible HPV16 vaccine and the intranasal boost. All of the antibodies reacted more strongly to intact HPV16-VLP than to denatured HPV16-L1 protein suggesting that the edible vaccine primes for antibody responses against conformation-dependent epitopes. The inclusion of adjuvant in the vaccine formulation marginally increased the genital IgA response (P = 0.06). HPV16-L1 protein in the yeast might induce tolerance in the vaccinated animals that could be recovered by intranasal boosting with a suboptimal dose of HPV-VLP. This freeze-dried yeast system may be useful as an oral delivery of HPV 16 L1 protein.