CATS, RATS, AND TOXOPLASMOSIS ON A SMALL PACIFIC ISLAND

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Abstract
Wallace, G. D. (Pacific Research Section, LPD, NIAID, NIH, P.O. Box 1680, Honolulu, Hawaii 96806), L. Marshall and M. Marshall. Cats, rats, and toxoplasmosis on a small Pacific island. Am J Epidemiol 95: 475–482, 1972.—A seroepidemiologic study of toxoplasmosis was conducted on a small ecologically simple atoll in the Western Pacific. The atoll offered an opportunity to investigate Toxoplasma on three adjacent islets with differing populations of homoiothermic animals. One islet was inhabited by people, cats, rats, pigs, fruit bats, chickens, and wild birds. Only cats, rats, bats, and wild birds lived on one of the other two islets, and only rats, bats, and wild birds lived on the last. Toxoplasma antibody (determined by the dye test) in man and the lower animals, indicated that the parasite was epidemic or endemic on the two islets where cats were present, but not on the islet without cats. Observations on the eating habits of the people inhabiting the atoll suggested that the consumption of raw meat was not the usual source of human infection. Information obtained from the investigation suggested that cats may have played an essential role in the life history and transmission of Toxoplasma on the atoll.

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