Toxoplasmosis

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

This relatively common parasitic infection poses a significant danger to pregnant women and people with AIDS. If contracted during pregnancy, the infection can be passed to the unborn child, leading to miscarriage, stillbirth, or birth defects such as brain damage or blindness. In AIDS patients, it tends to trigger a brain inflammation (encephalitis) that often proves fatal. For everyone else, the disease is so mild that few are aware they've had it.

Causes

You can catch toxoplasmosis from undercooked meat, raw eggs, unwashed raw vegetables and fruit, and unpasteurized milk contaminated with the protozoa, Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite also spreads through contaminated soil or cat waste. Cats are the only animals that shed this parasite in their feces. The infection is usually acquired by hand-to-mouth transfer from the feces, not by merely petting an infected cat.

Signs/Symptoms

Most people who contract this disease don't have any symptoms. If problems do occur, they are often limited to fatigue, muscle pain, mild intermittent fever, and swollen lymph nodes. Sometimes, the only noticeable symptom is blurring of vision.

However, in those with weakened immune systems, severe attacks may feature rash, chills, high fever, and prostration. If encephalitis develops in these patients, potential symptoms include weakness on one side of the body, tremors, sensory deficits, confusion, headache, and coma.

In newborns, the infection may quickly prove fatal, but more often leads to complications months or years later. Symptoms include vision problems, severe jaundice, easy bruising, severe mental retardation, convulsions, and a large or small head.

Care

This disease can be cured with anti-infective drugs. However, such medicines have been known to harm a developing baby, so the doctor will probably want to make sure the baby needs the medicine before he prescribes it. Tests on fluid drawn from the womb (an amniocentesis) can determine whether the baby has the infection.

Babies born with toxoplasmosis often need drugs daily for up to a year. Among AIDS patients, relapses are so common that the drugs may be prescribed permanently.

Risks

Although toxoplasmosis can be deadly for newborns and people with weakened immune systems, it's relatively harmless for others. If anti-infective drugs are required, there's also a risk of side effects such as skin rash, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Prior to treatments, talk to your doctor about ways to deal with these problems if they occur.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

• Take your medications as prescribed until they are all gone, even if you feel better.
• Rest in bed for one or two days and do not resume normal activities until you feel up to them.
• Drink plenty of liquids, especially those that contain a lot of vitamins and minerals.

To Prevent Infection

To keep this infection from recurring, take the following precautions, especially if you are pregnant or have AIDS.

• If you're in one of the high-risk groups, avoid contact with your cat's litter box. Have someone else empty it. If you are otherwise healthy, and not pregnant, wear rubber gloves while cleaning the box, and wash your hands and gloves afterwards.
• Cover children's sandboxes to keep cats from using them.
• Store meat at the proper temperature and cook it thoroughly (no red or pink center).
• Do not eat raw eggs or drink milk or other dairy products made from unpasteurized milk.
• Wear gloves and cover open wounds while gardening or doing other types of yard work. Wash hands and gloves afterwards.
• Wash hands, chopping boards, and utensils after preparing raw meat.
• Wash all fruits and vegetables thoroughly.

Call Your Doctor If...

• If you feel your medications are not working or you experience side effects.
• You develop signs of dehydration, such as dry mouth, dark or decreased urine, or dry, wrinkled skin.

Seek Care Immediately If...

• You are in a high-risk group and suspect you're infected.
• You begin having seizures.
• You experience muscle weakness or paralysis.

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