§ Mrs. Ray MichieTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what research is being carried out to discover the possible causes and sources of contamination of congenital toxoplasmosis; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. DorrellWe are not aware of any current research into the causes and sources of toxoplasmosis, but medical experts are agreed that the infection is usually acquired by eating raw or undercooked meat.
§ Mrs. Ray MichieTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the number of cases of congenital toxoplasmosis recorded in England and Wales as a fraction of total pregnancies for each year since 1979; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. DorrellCongenital toxoplasmosis is not a notifiable disease, so comprehensive figures are not available. However, reports of cases to the public health laboratory service from the Toxoplasma reference laboratories in England and Wales have averaged about 12 per year. As a proportion of the number of conceptions (between 750,000 and 850,000 per annum over the past decade), the figure is minute.