Toxoplasmosis: A Forgot but Still Relevant Disease

If you ask people, what they do know about Toxoplasma, many respond “Yes, I know it. It’s a parasite you may be exposed to when you have a cat, and it is dangerous to pregnant women”. This is certainly true, but it is not all the truth (۱). This is the most common misperception that people make when referring to this parasite, and it is probably because most people becoming infected are unaware of it and have no symptoms at all (۲). Indeed, the postnatally acquired Toxoplasma gondii infection in immunocompetent patients is generally mild or asymptomatic; therefore, latent toxoplasmosis has been usually considered clinically insignificant. Despite being considered a neglected parasitic infection, toxoplasmosis is a cosmopolitan zoonotic disease that causes remarkable economic losses in animals and still has a serious public health impact on humans in several countries (۳). T. gondii can infect almost all warm-blooded animals, including humans, and ranks ۴th among the ۲۴ most significant global foodborne parasites listed by the World Health Organization/United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization