Toxoplasmosis: What You Need to Know

T. gondii cycles between house mice and domestic cats in its main lifecycle but tends to end up in any warm-blooded host, including humans, often, through contact with contaminated cat feces. When it does jump from its normal hosts, it can cause the disease Toxoplasmosis. Although the pathogen and disease are found all over the world, many people don’t know either exists.

“Most healthy people in the United States and Europe don’t know they have it, as the pathogen mainly presents signs of the disease in two cases, immunocompromised or pregnant individuals,” Dr. Su stated. The CDC describes these symptoms in HIV immunocompromised people as severe flu-like symptoms, poor coordination, and even seizures. Additionally, they note some birth defects, which occur in the unborn children of recently infected women, that can be seen at birth, such as an enlarged or small head, and possible conditions that can arise as the child grows, like mental disabilities and vision loss.

This simulation showed how human actions created an environment, full of house mice and domestic cats, that favored more transmissible and less virulent strains of Toxoplasma, such as Type 2, in the Old World. Although there is limited evidence, it is possible that a similar pattern could explain the pattern of virulence we see in the Western Hemisphere. The more developed and industrialized North America has a less virulent strain compared to the developing nations of South America. Dr. Su put it best, “It’s a very interesting possibility of how human behaviors might have influenced the genomic distribution of a disease.”

When asked about the future of Toxoplasma, Dr. Su stated that having an economically efficient way to reduce the amount of pathogen that humans encounter, mainly by having a vaccine. If a vaccine were to be effective at preventing the spread of the pathogen, then it could be a turning point in the battle against Toxoplasmosis.