Purpose: The objective of this study was to summarize seroprevalence and risk factors of human T. gondii infection through ingesting meat products, both conventional and organic, in the past twenty years.
Methods: Relevant studies in literature were searched in Pubmed and Google Scholar database by key words ‘Toxoplasma gondii’ and in combination with ‘pig’, ‘pork’, ‘sheep’, ‘lamb’, ‘chicken’, ‘poultry’, ‘cattle’, ‘meat’ and ‘organic meat’. This structured review was focused on studies of T. gondii infection through meat-consumption route. Other studies for the transmission through ingesting oocysts shed by felid were excluded.
Results: At least half of the human T. gondii infections are through consumption of raw or undercooked meat products containing tissue cysts. Seroprevalence of T. gondii is more frequent in conventional pig and sheep compared to cattle and poultry. Seroprevalence of T. gondii is greater in organic compared to conventional meat products because of outdoor access that have substantially greater opportunities for exposure to infected rodents, wildlife, and oocyst contaminated feed, water, or environmental surfaces. Several different risk factors related to T. gondii infection identified are farm type, feeding, presence of cats, rodent control, bird control, farm management, carcasses handling and water quality.
Significance: This review provided a summary of T. gondii infection through consumption of both conventional and organic meat products that contained tissue cysts. This study would serve as a useful resource and information repository for informing quantitative risk assessment studies for T. gondii infection in humans through meat consumption.