Treatment
- Healthy people (nonpregnant)
- Pregnant women, newborns, and infants
- Persons with ocular disease
- Persons with compromised immune systems
Healthy people (nonpregnant)
Most healthy people recover from toxoplasmosis without treatment. Persons who are ill can be treated with a combination of drugs such as pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine, plus folinic acid.
Pregnant women, newborns, and infants
Pregnant women, newborns, and infants can be treated, although the parasite is not eliminated completely. The parasites can remain within tissue cells in a less active phase; their location makes it difficult for the medication to completely eliminate them.
Persons with ocular disease
Persons with ocular toxoplasmosis are sometimes prescribed medicine to treat active disease by their ophthalmologist. Whether or not medication is recommended depends on the size of the eye lesion, the location, and the characteristics of the lesion (acute active, versus chronic not progressing).
Persons with compromised immune systems
Persons with compromised immune systems need to be treated until they have improvement in their condition. For AIDS patients, continuation of medication for the rest of their lives may be necessary, or for as long as they are immunosuppressed.
Page last reviewed: January 10, 2008
Content Source: Division of Parasitic Diseases (DPD)
National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (ZVED)