“Blind periods” in screening for toxoplasmosis in pregnancy in Austria – a debate

BMC Infectious Diseases

Correspondence

Alexander Krämer¹  Ulrich Sagel²  Rafael T Mikolajczyk³ 

[1] Department of Public Health Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 10 01 31, D-33501, Bielefeld, Germany;Department of Public Health Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 10 01 31, D-33501, Bielefeld, Germany;Analyse BioLab GmbH, Eisenhandstr 4-6, A-4020, Linz, Austria;Institute of Hygiene and Mikrobiology, Lower Austria State Hospital of St. Pölten-Lilienfeld, Probst-Führer-Str. 4, A-3100, St. Pölten, Austria;Department of Public Health Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 10 01 31, D-33501, Bielefeld, Germany;Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine, Achterstr 30, D-28359, Bremen, Germany;

关键词: Prenatal Care;    Toxoplasmosis;    Late Pregnancy;    Spiramycine;    Prenatal Screening;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2334-12-118

 received in 2011-12-06, accepted in 2012-05-01,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Recent studies from Austria, France and Italy have shown that there is a poor adherence to the screening scheme for maternal Toxoplasma infections in pregnancy demonstrated by the fact that many recommended examinations are missed. This leads to undetected infections and limits our knowledge of incidence of the disease. We discuss the negative consequences of this situation on research on treatment effectiveness and the outcomes of congenital toxoplasmosis. The responsible public health institutions should assume responsibility for appropriate surveillance of the screening programme and take measures to improve screening adherence during pregnancy. Screening should start as early as possible in pregnancy and the latest test should be done at delivery. Screening schedule should allow distinguishing infections from the first, second and third trimester of pregnancy, as the risk of materno-foetal transmission and outcomes in case of foetal infections varies by time.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Sagel et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.