Toxoplasmosis: the need for improved diagnostic techniques and accurate risk assessment.

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is a coccidian parasite of cats (Hutchison et al. 1971a, b) which has an extremely wide range of secondary hosts. With the advent of efficient screening methods, there is an increasing awareness of the organism as an important pathogen in human and veterinary medicine. The parasite has a wide geographical distribution, with almost 500 million people worldwide showing serological evidence of infection. T gondii exists in two distinct cycles: an enteroepithelial sexual cycle in cats and an extraintestinal cycle in most warm-blooded animals. KeywordsToxoplasma GondiiComplement Fixation TestIndirect Fluorescent Antibody TestCirculate Immune ComplexCongenital ToxoplasmosisThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.