When was the last time you took your cat for an AIDS test? Perhaps never. But now might be a good time to do so. Your cuddly buddy may be infected and you don’t know it.
No one expects a cat to contract a disease that humans get from having unprotected sex with an infected partner. But it can, through blood and saliva from an infected cat. And it in turn, can infect humans with the rare toxoplasmosis. Cats are the host of the organism that causes toxoplasmosis. An HIV positive patient with toxoplasmosis can die if it is untreated and an HIV negative person can develop pancreatitis. This is devastating news for cat lovers worldwide.
The cute fuzzy “puddy tat” as Elmer Fudd would say, that love to curl up on your sofa and on your lap may be infected with the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). However, your cat might not be the only infected feline. It is estimated that one to 14 percent of cats are infected with FIV.
That according to Trinidadian Professor Courtenay Bartholomew in a Science Report published in the Daily Express, last May 7. “Just as there is a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), there is also a feline (cat) immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which attacks the immune system of cats. It is caused by the same family of retroviruses that triggers AIDS in humans. It is called “feline AIDS.”
Bartholomew, Director of the Medical Research Foundation of Trinidad and Tobago, wrote that FIV was first diagnosed in 1986. Cats displaying symptoms similar to human AIDS were discovered in 1984. Tests on the cats concluded that they had FIV.
The disease is not sexual. It’s transmitted from cat to cat through blood and saliva, by biting and scratching. “Free-roaming outdoor male cats that fight each other defending territorial turf are at greatest risk and have an infection rate two to three times that of their female counterparts,” Bartholomew wrote, adding, that cats with feline AIDS sometimes suffer from toxoplasmosis. FIV is not likely to be transmitted among household cats nor can it be transmitted from cat to human.
Bartholomew noted that toxoplasmosis which was extremely rare before the AIDS era is seen more frequently than tuberculosis. It is caused by “infection with a protozoa, a unicellular organism of the animal kingdom, of the genus Toxoplasma (derived from toxo meaning “poison” or “toxin” + plasma). It has to do with cats. They are the definitive hosts of the organism.”
The cat can become infected by eating contaminated raw meat, wild birds or mice. The toxoplasma organism reproduces in the cat’s intestine and it discharges millions of oocysts (eggs) in its faeces. Humans in turn become infected from contaminated soil, vegetables, salads and ingestion of raw or undercooked meat containing tissue cysts.
Bartholomew noted that toxoplasma cysts are dormant in immuno-competent normal adults and varies between regions and people worldwide. A 1958 research revealed that 54.5 percent of humans were healthy carriers of toxoplasma antibodies. But in patients with “an immune deficiency syndrome like AIDS, there is a high risk of reactivation of the latent toxoplasma cysts in the body, especially in the brain, resulting in severe disease and death if left untreated.”
HIV/AIDS patients with toxoplasmosis get abscesses in the brain, headaches, confusion, fits and strokes. “Unlike common stroke, which results from high blood pressure and diabetes, stroke in HIV/AIDS patients suffering from toxoplasmosis are eminently treatable if diagnosed early.”
FIV came to light when an HIV negative woman sought treatment for severe upper abdominal pain and weight loss. It turned out to be an extremely rare toxoplasmosis. It was the first such case reported in the country and the patient was treated with high doses of sulphur tablets.
Susan Gosine - Hi. I'm Susan Gosine a freelance writer based in New York. After 20 years of working in the newspaper industry and amassing a wealth of ...
