Risk Assessment of Human Toxoplasmosis Associated with the Consumption of Pork Meat in Italy

Abstract

Toxoplasmosis is a cosmopolitan disease and has a broad range of hosts, including humans and several wild and domestic animals. The human infection is mostly acquired through the consumption of contaminated food and pork meat has been recognized as one of the major sources of transmission. There are, however, certain fundamental differences between countries; therefore, the present study specifically aims to evaluate the exposure of the Italian population to Toxoplasma gondii through the ingestion of several types of pork meat products habitually consumed in Italy and to estimate the annual number of human infections within two subgroups of the population. A quantitative risk assessment model was built for this reason and was enriched with new elements in comparison to other similar risk assessments in order to enhance its accuracy. Sensitivity analysis and two alternative scenarios were implemented to identify the factors that have the highest impact on risk and to simulate different plausible conditions, respectively. The estimated overall average number of new infections per year among adults is 12,513 and 92 for pregnant women. The baseline model showed that almost all these infections are associated with the consumption of fresh meat cuts and preparations (mean risk of infection varied between 4.5 × 10 −5 and 5.5 × 10 −5 ) and only a small percentage is due to fermented sausages/salami. On the contrary, salt-cured meat products seem to pose minor risk but further investigations are needed to clarify still unclear aspects. Among all the considered variables, cooking temperature and bradyzoites' concentration in muscle impacted most the risk.

Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load

“…Toxoplasmosis is, overall, the third most common cause of human hospitalization due to food-borne infection [1, 2]. In Italy, it has been estimated that the overall average number of new infections per year among adults is 12,513, of which 92 are pregnant women [3].…”

“…Humans may become infected through the ingestion of food and water contaminated by sporulated oocysts or ingestion of cysts from infected tissues. Meat from domestic pigs has been shown to be an important source of infection for humans through the consumption of contaminated and infected fresh meat cuts and preparations [1–3, 5].…”

Public health risks associated with food‐borne parasites

“…Cooking times will vary with thickness and type of meat (Dubey et al., ). Cooking temperature and T. gondii bradyzoite concentration in muscle impacted most on the risk of transmission to humans (Condoleo et al., ). Microwave cooking is considered unreliable for inactivating viable tissue cysts because of hot and cold spots due to the physics of microwaves (Lundén and Uggla, ).…”

Prevalence and genetic characterization of Toxoplasma gondii in naturally infected backyard pigs intended for familial consumption in Romania

“…In the countries with a temperate climate, between 30% and 63% of infections have been attributed to the consumption of undercooked or cured meat products, whereas only 6% to 17% to soil contact [11, 12]. Moreover, there were reported cases of toxoplasmosis related to the consumption of pork or cured pork products in Italy [13, 14], the USA [15] and Korea [16].…”