Thai Disease Center Warns Pussy-Cat Lovers

After examinations and tests, it was determined his lesions were related to a disease called chorioretinal toxoplasmosis. A common disease carried by both wild and domestic cats called toxoplasma gondii or T. gondii T.  When a cat eats an infected mouse, rat, or any other prey that carries the parasite, they themselves become infected when digesting raw meat. A parasite is then released from cysts into the cat’s digestive tract, where it reproduces and produces oocysts.

Infected cats then excrete these oocysts in their feces by the millions. When the parasites leave the cysts of the infected meat, they will penetrate even more into the wall of the cat’s intestines which in return multiply into another form, called a tachyzoite. It then spreads from the intestine to other parts of the cat. Eventually, the cat’s immune system forces the parasite lays dormant until cysts grow in the cat’s muscles and the brain. Eventually mutating into yet another form, called a bradyzoite.