Toxoplasma gondii in pork & pork products - too much on our plate?

Abstract

Background. The constant growth of the global population has led to increasing food production, which has been particularly evident in the production of pork in recent years. In 2015, the number of pigs surpassed one billion, and in 2018 a record high of 120 million tonnes of pork was produced worldwide. In spite of the expansion and dominance of specialized industrial farming in developed countries, Toxoplasma gondii infection in pigs as a source of human infection remains an issue in traditional small-scale farming. The disease burden of toxoplasmosis is estimated to be the highest of all parasitic infections and even higher than that of salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis. Scope and Approach. This paper reviews the latest research on T. gondii-contaminated pork and pork products, published in the past decade. As current methods do not allow for practical and cost-effective detection of T. gondii at slaughter, efforts towards safe meat have focused on the detection of the parasite in pork and ready-to-eat pork products and on post-harvest mitigation measures. Key Findings and Conclusions. In contrast to recommendations for preventing Trichinella infection, there are no globally applicable standardised and validated inactivation procedures for rendering T. gondii infected pork/pork products safe for consumers. Moreover, there are no EU regulations in place for the prevention of T. gondii infection by consumption of pork and pork products. Recommended actions, both at the producer and consumer levels, include post-harvest processing such as cooking, freezing, and proper salting/curing.

Keywords

• curing
• foodborne zoonosis
• pork
• pork products
• preventive measures
• toxoplasma gondii