What are the causes and symptoms of toxoplasmosis?
Healthy individuals do not usually display symptoms. When symptoms do occur, they are usually mild, resembling infectious mononucleosis, and include the following: • enlarged lymph nodes • muscle pains • fever that comes and goes • general sick feeling. The distinction is made between acquired toxoplasmosis, in which an individual becomes infected, and neonatal congenital toxoplasmosis, in which a fetus is born with the infection because the mother became infected during pregnancy. If a fetus becomes infected early in pregnancy, the disease can cause the fetus to spontaneously abort, be stillborn. If full-term, the infant may die in infancy or suffer from central nervous system lesions. If the mother becomes infected in the last three months of pregnancy, however, the prognosis is good and the baby may not even display any symptoms. In adults, if the infection continues for an extended period of time, chronic toxoplasmosis can cause an inflammation of the eyes called retinochoroiditis,
