Neospora caninum is an apicomplexan parasite with worldwide distribution, which primarily causes disease in dogs and cattle. It has been recognized as an important cause of epidemic and endemic abortion in cattle around the world. There is no study to demonstrate the country level picture of the disease in Iran and estimate the extent of the problem, quantitatively. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to systematically review the observational studies on bovine neosporosis in Iran and estimate an overall serologic prevalence of the infection in the cattle population. Search for all published reports on N. caninum in Iran was conducted from inception until September 2018. Major English (PubMed, Scopus and Science Direct) and Persian (IranDoc, SID, Iranmedex, and Magiran) electronic database sources were used for this study. After removing duplicated articles, 128 documents remained. Unrelated articles (89) were excluded after primary screening and 39 articles were evaluated for eligibility. Finally, 37 studies from 33 articles were recognized as eligible and were included in the present work. The author screened the studies and extracted the data twice, carefully. Based on the meta-analysis, the overall serologic prevalence of N. caninum in 10,967 cattle with 2619 positive ones was 23.6 % with 95 % CI: 19.8-27.9 %. The random effect model was used for meta-analysis because the Cochran Q value (795.10, df = 36, P < 0.001) and Higgins index (I2 = 95.47 %) showed statistically significant heterogeneity. In subgroup meta-analysis, abortion status of the animal and geographical location of the study showed significant association with serologic prevalence, while age and breed did not have significant associations. No publication bias was detected, and sensitivity analysis showed stability of the overall estimate after excluding any individual study. It could be concluded that N. caninum is widespread in cattle population in Iran and the time is right to implement national level educational and control programs for it.

中文翻译：

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伊朗的牛新孢子虫病：系统评价和荟萃分析。

犬新孢子虫是一种在世界范围内分布的蚜虫寄生虫，其主要引起狗和牛的疾病。它被认为是全世界牛流行和地方性流产的重要原因。目前尚无研究显示该国在伊朗的疾病状况，并定量评估了问题的严重程度。因此，本研究的目的是系统地回顾伊朗对牛新孢子虫病的观察性研究，并估计牛群中感染的总体血清学患病率。从开始到2018年9月，一直在搜索有关伊朗犬新孢子虫的所有已发表报告。本研究使用主要英语（PubMed，Scopus和Science Direct）和波斯语（IranDoc，SID，Iranmedex和Magiran）的电子数据库。删除重复的文章后，剩下128个文档。初步筛选后排除无关的文章（89），并评估39篇文章的资格。最后，来自33篇文章的37篇研究被认为是合格的，并已包括在本研究中。作者筛选了研究并仔细提取了两次数据。根据荟萃分析，在10,967头牛（2619阳性）中，犬新孢子虫的总体血清学患病率为23.6％，CI为95％：19.8-27.9％。随机效应模型用于荟萃分析，因为Cochran Q值（795.10，df = 36，P <0.001）和Higgins指数（I2 = 95.47％）显示出统计学显着的异质性。在亚组荟萃分析中，动物的流产状况和地理位置显示与血清学患病率显着相关，而年龄和品种没有明显的关联。没有发现出版偏倚，并且敏感性分析显示，排除任何单独的研究后，总体估计值的稳定性。可以得出结论，犬新孢子虫广泛存在于伊朗的牛群中，是时候对其实施国家级的教育和控制计划了。