Animal Waste, Water Quality and Human Health

Assessing the importance of zoonotic waterborne pathogens 31children (Jones et al. 2005). In addition, in a Polish farm population, there was apositive correlation between drinking unboiled well water and the presence ofT. gondii antibodies (Sroka et al. 2006). Based on these reports, it is possiblethat consumption of inadequately treated water or accidental drinking ofrecreational water from streams, lakes, ponds or wells explains human infection.A small percentage of affected humans and animals develop symptomatictoxoplasmosis. It is not well understood whether the severity of disease dependson parasite genotypes, infection load, immune status, a combination of these orother factors. Severe cases of toxoplasmosis reported in humans wereepidemiologically linked to ingestion of T. gondii oocysts from water (Benensonet al. 1982, Bowie et al. 1997, de Moura et al. 2006). Three clonal lineagesof T. gondii strain types I, II and III (Howe & Sibley 1995) may be associatedwith human symptomatic toxoplasmosis. It has been demonstrated thattype II isolates predominate in congenital (Nowakowska et al. 2006) andimmuno-compromised patients (Lindström et al. 2006). In French Guiana andSuriname, T. gondii strains with atypical genotypes have been isolated fromsevere cases of toxoplasmosis in immuno-competent patients (Demar et al. 2007).Cases of severe or acquired ocular toxoplasmosis are more likely to be due totypes I or recombinant genotypes (Grigg et al. 2001). In animals, mouse-virulentstrains with atypical genotypes have been found in asymptomatic chickens andcats from Brazil (Pena et al. 2008). Two new genotypes (Types A and X) ofT. gondii have been found as causes of meningoencephalitis and death in seaotters from North America (Sundar et al. 2008).Domestic cats bury their faeces in soft and moist soil, which provides a highpossibility of widespread environmental contamination. Cats can shed onemillion oocysts per gram of faeces (Schares et al. 2008) over a period of one tothree weeks. Oocysts in faeces survived outdoor in Texas (6–36°C), uncovered,for 46 days, covered for 334 days (Yilmaz & Hopkins, 1972) and outdoors insoil buried at the depth of 3–9 cm in Kansas for 18 months (Frenkel et al.1975). Oocysts in seawater (15 ppt NaCl) kept at 4°C, had a long-term survivalof 24 months and were infectious to mice (Lindsay & Dubey 2009). Cats(domestic/wild) and other felines are highly exposed: in the USA, T. gondiiantibodies were found among wild captive felids in zoos: 27.3% in cheetahs,50% in African lynx, 54.5% in African lions, 28.8% in Amur tigers, 25% infishing cats, 50% in pumas and 35.7% in snow leopards (de Camps et al. 2008).The seroprevalence of antibodies to T. gondii in livestock was found to be68.7% in pigs (Dubey et al. 2008), 30% in goats, 35% in sheep (Sharif et al.2007), 2.4% in cattle (Sharma et al. 2008), 38.1% in horses (Ghazy et al. 2007),59.5% in turkeys, 47.2% in chickens and 50% in ducks (El-Massry et al. 2000).In coastal marine mammals, recent findings on prevalence of T. gondii