Toxoplasmosis primary prevention
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Primary Prevention
There are several general sanitation and food safety steps to reduce the chances of becoming infected with Toxoplasma:
- Gloves should be worn when gardening or doing anything outdoors that involves handling soil. Cats, which may pass the parasite in their feces, often use gardens and sandboxes as litter boxes. Hands should be washed well with soap and water after outdoor activities, especially before you eat or prepare any food.
- When preparing raw meat, cutting boards, sinks, knives, and other utensils that might have touched the raw meat should be washed thoroughly with soap and hot water to avoid cross-contaminating other foods. Hands should be washed well with soap and water after handling raw meat.
- All meat should be cooked thoroughly; that is, to an internal temperature of 160° F
Pregnancy Precautions
For congenital toxoplasmosis, a special form in which an unborn child is infected via the placenta, a positive antibody titer indicates previous exposure and immunity and largely ensures the unborn baby's safety. If a woman receives her first exposure to toxoplasmosis while pregnant, the baby is at particular risk. A woman with no previous exposure should avoid handling raw meat, exposure to cat faeces, and gardening (cat faeces are common in garden soil). Most cats are not actively shedding oocysts and so are not a danger, but the risk may be reduced further by having the litterbox emptied daily (oocysts require longer than a single day to become infective), and by having someone else empty the litterbox.