14 Prevention Tips for Toxoplasmosis

When it comes to toxoplasmosis infections, most adults who become infected can expect to get away with absolutely no symptoms at all, living with the infection but having an immune system that is more than capable of fighting it off.

On some occasions, the parasitic disease will cause people to experience relatively mild, flu-like symptoms for a short period of time. These symptoms include the relatively harmless swollen lymph nodes, headaches, and muscle pains.

For a small group of people however, those living with HIV, or other immunodeficiency conditions, as well as pregnant women, toxoplasmosis can prevent a much more serious threat. This means that, where possible, steps should be taken to affect a vulnerable person from contracting the infection. Some of these prevention tips may seem more obvious than others, but they are all worth considering, after all, prevention is always significantly better than the cure. Read these prevention tips carefully.

1.     Reduce Risk From Food

One of the best ways to prevent the threat of a whole host of infections, including toxoplasmosis, from entering the body via food, is to ensure that food is always cooked to safe temperatures.

Food thermometers are the safest, most scientific kitchen tool to ensure this, as simply observing the color of an item of food is far from reliable when it comes to indicating the necessary. In this case, the necessary indications would be that the food has been cooked up to a hot enough temperature in order to kill potentially harmful pathogens, toxoplasma included.

Meat, in particular, should never be sampled until it is properly cooked, if this prevention method is to be fully effective, however, it isn’t just when cooking meat that one must abide by the rule of cooking food to the right temperature. It just so happens that meat is the most likely transmitter of toxoplasmosis, in terms of food sources.