Toxoplasmosis
Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by toxoplasma, which is asymptomatic in most cases.
ETIOLOGY AND PATHOGENESIS
The causative agent is Toxoplasma Toxoplasma gondii. The source of infection is domestic and wild animals (cats, rabbits, dogs, small rodents). Transmission mechanism: fecal-oral, pathways: food, water, transmissible, intrauterine infection. You can get infected when cleaning the cat’s tray with your hands without gloves, from infected land, eating poorly processed meat, if personal hygiene is not observed after processing fresh meat. Infection with toxoplasmosis is possible only once. Sometimes, very rarely, if a woman becomes infected with toxoplasmosis 6-10 months before conception, a favorable outcome is possible. A woman gets sick, develops immunity and then passes it to the fetus. The overwhelming percentage of infection occurs from cats, domestic and wild, especially since toxoplasmosis in cats does not show any clinical signs at all. The incubation period is about three weeks.
symptoms
The symptoms of toxoplasmosis are so diverse that they can disguise themselves as other diseases, but they can be completely asymptomatic.
CLASSIFICATION OF TOXOPLASMOSIS:
Innate
Acquired
With congenital toxoplasmosis, the fetus dies before birth, directly stillbirth, the birth of a child with significant disorders of the nervous system, visual organs.
Acquired toxoplasmosis is latent for a long time, then a flu-like condition develops with high fever, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, asthenic syndrome. Lymph nodes, headache, myalgia may also be enlarged. Then all the symptoms go away.
Of particular importance is toxoplasmosis, developed in a person with immunodeficiency (HIV, patients with donor organs, patients with lymphoma), as it proceeds in the most acute form, which threatens the patient’s life. Since toxoplasma can affect almost any human organ, the symptoms in such patients will depend on the localization of the lesion.
Also, the acute course of toxoplasmosis can be masked under the course of typhus, meningitis, tetanus. But the most common form of toxoplasmosis is a chronic course with the preservation of subfebrility, lymphadenitis, headaches. Concentration of attention and efficiency are often reduced.
diagnostics
Since toxoplasmosis is almost asymptomatic, it is often detected quite accidentally at preventive medical examinations, during registration during pregnancy, at medical examinations.
The main method of determination is serological – enzyme immunoassay and analysis of the level of immunoglobulins G, M.
In case of detection of toxoplasmosis in a pregnant woman, the option of artificial termination of pregnancy is possible.
treatment
In persons without immunodeficiency, toxoplasmosis does not need etiotropic treatment, it turns out to be only symptomatic, depending on the manifestation of symptoms – antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotectors, immunomodulators. Subsequently, lifelong persistent immunity develops. When the nervous system is affected, glucocorticosteroids are used, when vital organs and systems are affected, Daraprim, Sulfadiazine can be taken.
In pregnant women and HIV-infected patients, treatment is carried out with the drug Spiramycin. When the fetus is infected (infection > 17 weeks), Spiramycin is replaced with Sulfadiazine.
A child with congenital toxoplasmosis is shown a combination of Pyrimethamine + Sulfadiazine + Folic acid during the first year of life.
REHABILITATION AFTER TREATMENT
All children who survived toxpolasmosis are observed by a pediatrician for 10 years, once every six months, together with a neurologist and an optometrist.
