Table 3.

Pooled prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infections in relation to age, gender and characteristics of study population

Variables	No. of Studies	Pooled Estimates			(95% CI)	Heterogeneity			Meta-regression
		Sample size	Cases	Prev. (%)		Q-value	I2 (%)	Q-p	P- value	OR (95% CI)
Age*
Children	7	1365	551	18.52	6.02, 44.63	342.16	98.25	< 0.001	0.451	0.37 (−0.59, 1.33)
Adults	7	2790	1224	36.93	29.04, 45.59	106.08	94.34	< 0.001		Reference
Total	14	4155	1775	29.55	21.19, 39.55	448.80	97.10	< 0.001
Gender								< 0.001
Male	15	2391	1052	31.85	21.79, 43.94	353.07	96.04	< 0.001	0.835	−0.07 (−0.70, 0.57)
Female	22	4263	1667	30.61	22.95, 39.51	620.71	96.62	< 0.001		Reference
Total	37	6654	2719	31.23	25.15, 38.02	981.86	96.33	< 0.001
Target Population
Pregnant women	20	6560	2990	40.25	33.19, 47.73	600.05	96.83	< 0.001	0.034	0.35 (−0.21, 0.91)
Healthy individuals	11	1372	313	23.32	17.25, 30.75	70.24	85.76	< 0.001		−0.49 (−1.16, 0.18)
HIV patients	16	4061	1163	31.68	20.53, 45.41	767.23	98.05	< 0.001		Reference
Total	47	11,993	4466	32.94	27.61, 38.74	1614.29	97.15	< 0.001

^*(P = 0.022); CI Confidence interval; HIV Human immunodeficiency virus; I² Inverse variance index; MOD Method of diagnosis; OR Odds Ratio; Prev. Prevalence; Q-p Cochran’s p-value