Establishing the risk of Toxoplasmosis associated with the consumption of meat and meat products

Summary

​Toxoplasma gondii is one of the most common parasitic infections of human and other warm- blooded animals. One infection route for humans is through ingestion of infected animal tissue. International data on the sero-prevalence of livestock animals indicates that lambs and sheep may pose a significant risk to humans. Furthermore, sheep meat, and in particular lamb meat, is not often served 'well done', which allows for viable cysts to persist in the meat (effective cooking kills T. gondii cysts). Changes in the diversity of the end-use pathways of these products may also exacerbate the risk posed by sheep and lamb meat.
Sero-prevalence indicates past exposure as cysts remain viable for the life of the animal. Detection of cysts is costly and time consuming (animal experiments), but recent developments in the use of PCR tests to screen for presence of cysts (viable and non-viable) and their genotypes would allow for better estimation of the exposure risk to consumers (2007 MLA Risk Profile for T. gondii).
Consequently, a sero-prevalence survey, with provisions for follow-up PCR screening of tissue, in sheep and lambs would allow the industry to estimate the risk posed by T.gondii by this exposure route.
This  project is in conjunction with Australian Pork Limited (APL) to develop a test procedures for detection of Toxoplasma in meat and estimate test sensitivity parameters by using mouse bio-assay.