Toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasmosis is an infectious disease caused by parasites (Toxoplasma gondii). It affects humans and cats equally. As a rule, only minor symptoms (e.g. mild diarrhoea) appear when the immune system is in tact. Only in people with a weakened immune system, pregnant women and young weakened cats can the course of the disease be more severe. Humans usually become infected by eating insufficiently heated or raw meat. Humans are intermediate hosts for the pathogen and can infect their beloved domestic cat. The pathogen then multiplies in the cat’s intestine and is excreted with the cat faeces (in the form of oocytes). The infectious cat faeces then ends up on pastures, in the next garden or in the litter box of domestic cats via stray cats. Humans can then in turn become infected through infected raw meat, during gardening or when cleaning the litter tray. In medicine, this simultaneous infection between humans and animals is also called zoonosis.