5. Drinking raw milk from an infected goat
As niche as it sounds, this could potentially be one further way that a person could infect themselves with toxoplasmosis. Lots of warm-blooded animals, including humans, cows, pigs, and deer can act as middlemen for the transmission of the parasites. These intermediate hosts serve to hold on to the tissue cysts as they develop, usually causing the carrier no symptoms at all, meaning that the infection goes undetected.
Drinking raw goats milk is something that many cultures practice as the norm, given that it is readily available, cheap and very nutritious. In developing countries, it can be seen as a staple for some people, and so the very notion that it could be potentially harmful or even fatal is particularly alarming.
The birth defects that can arise when a pregnant woman passes on toxoplasmosis to her unborn child can be catastrophic, and so more education is needed to prevent needless transmissions of the infection, such as this one.