Many people don't even realise that they've got this condition which can be potentially very dangerous for some people and unborn babies. Now to a story that might put you off having a bloody steak at your next barbie, because catching a parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis is a possibility. In fact toxo, as it s called, is an underpublicised, but potentially significant public health issue. Dr Jose Montoya, an infectious disease researcher at Stanford University in California, has made toxoplasmosis one of his life s works. Toxo can be acquired anywhere in the world, and it s one of the most common infections in humans, and it can be acquired in almost any setting.
Cats are the only and best amplifiers of the infection in nature.
Cats carry the parasite in their small intestine, they don t get sick from it, but they love to pass it around. They appear to have in their intestinal epithelial cells, they have the right receptors and they have the right environment for toxo to replicate. So a cat that is infected for example, can put in the faeces up to 10-million infecting oocysts of these organisms per day. And they can do that for 14 or 21 days. Toxo in general moves in humans in a silent way.