Toxoplasma Gondii Case Study

Validation of the dried blood spots in monitoring toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite belonging to the phylum Apicomplexa and it has a vast worldwide distribution. Cats are the definitive host of T. gondii, and all other hosts in which only asexual reproduction can occur are defined as intermediate hosts.

Humans are known to be infected by many routes: a) Ingestion of Toxoplasma tissue cyst or pseudocysts with raw or partly cooked meat or during hand-to-mouth contact after handling undercooked meat and from using knives, cutting boards and utensils contaminated by raw meat. b) Ingestion of sporulated oocyst with unwashed fruits, vegetables and contaminated water (Coutinho et al., 1982) or through hand-to-mouth contact following gardening and cleaning a cat's litter box (Dubey, 1998). c)

Although Toxoplasma gondii is not a major food-borne pathogen, but it is crucial from the public health viewpoint (Batz et al., 2011). Also, despite the initial concern that T. gondii is related to dealing with cats and cat’s litter, fifty percent of toxoplasmosis cases are food-borne (Slifko et al., 2000; Scallanet al., 2011). The main routes for transmission of T. gondii to human are ingestion of the environmentally resistant sporulated oocysts, or eating raw or undercooked meat containing the cysts or pseudocysts (Dubey, 1998b). There are other routes of transmission as Transplacental infection in congenital transmission (Jones et al., 2001) and organ transplantation. Rarely, via blood transfusion or handling infected blood by laboratory workers (Tenter et al.,