In the United States, they will stop catting cats to investigate an infection that affects half of the world

According to the latest data, up to half the populationthe world is infected with toxoplasmosis, an infection carried by domestic animals and wild mammals. So, in the USA its carriers are every fourth inhabitant, in Russia - every fifth. And although in most cases the disease is asymptomatic, scientists do not stop studying it: in the United States, for example, the program of toxoplasmosis has been active for almost 30 years, in which cats were intentionally infected with the disease and after a while were put to sleep.

After the speech, activists and advocatesAnimals US Department of Agriculture finally decided to roll this program, writes the publication NPR. According to activists, in the framework of studies that have been going on since 1982, cats not only specifically infected with toxoplasmosis, but also forced them to eat meat of other domestic animals. The White Coat Waste Project organization reports that over 3,000 cats have suffered from this.

Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture claim that the program has reduced the prevalence of this disease in the United States by almost half - although it does not provide any evidence or even time.

In Russia, from working with experiments on catsIt was abandoned as early as the 1980s, and no one conducts research on toxoplasmosis in this way. As the infectiologist Kirillova Ye.N. told the editorial office of Hi-News.ru, there is no need for this, since even people with the acute form of toxoplasmosis can be cured on their own without taking any medications.

Treatment assistance is usually requiredpregnant women or newborns. The exception is people with weakened immunity, including HIV. In other cases, the immune system itself is able to repel the infection.

Toxoplasmosis infection is very simple, oftenall through contact with infected animals and the use of dirty cat litter in everyday life. At the same time, infection occurs when eating meat products and eggs that have not undergone sufficient heat treatment. The annual incidence of congenital toxoplasmosis is estimated at around 200,000 cases, with most of them in South America and countries with low living standards.

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