• Question: whats the weirdest thing you've ever found behind an eyeball? xxx

    Asked by lilywalkerx to Julian on 24 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Julian Rayner

      Julian Rayner answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      Hi again lily!

      Eyeballs aren’t really my thing, but there is a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii which is related to the malaria parasites that I work on that can cause problems in eyeballs.

      Toxoplasma is usually passed back and forth between cats and mice, but sometimes we pick it up by accident, and if pregnant women catch it, it can cause infections and problems in their developing fetus. One of those problems can by eye trouble for the child later in life – the parasite forms a cyst behind the eyeball, then later on starts to develop further, causing blurred vision and sometimes even blindness if it isn’t recognised early enough.

      It isn’t very common, but pregnant women are specifically recommended not to handle cat litter for exactly this reason – they could pick up Toxoplasma from the cat litter.

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