THURSDAY, April 11, 2024 (HealthDay News) — A uncommon fungal an infection has been identified in two cats and a vet tech who handled one of many animals, a brand new report warns.
The three circumstances — found in Kansas in late 2022 and early 2023 — have been brought on by a fungus referred to as Sporothrix schenckii, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported within the May concern of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
“The good news is that this fungal infection is treatable and cats can be cured if a diagnosis is made early,” Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, advised NBC News.
However, “these infections take a long time to get better,” he famous.
Sporotrichosis is uncommon within the United States and sometimes causes a pores and skin an infection that is not contagious, in line with the CDC.
But when cats are contaminated, they carry a really excessive fungal load, that means they’re extra more likely to unfold the an infection to different cats, dogs and folks, mentioned report creator Ian Hennessee, an epidemic intelligence service officer on the CDC.
“They get these awful wounds on their face, in their nasal cavities and on their paws, and those lesions are full of these fungi,” Hennessee advised NBC News.
Usually, these infections don’t concern public well being officers.
“The only reason this particular case came to the attention of the health department was because of the human involvement,” Dr. Erin Petro, a state public well being veterinarian on the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, advised NBC News. “That piqued our interest.”
The first case was in an indoor-outdoor cat who had a wound on her paw that didn’t heal, even with antibiotics. She unfold the an infection to a veterinary technician via a scratch. Several months later, a second cat from the identical home additionally fell in poor health, NBC News reported.
Neither the primary cat nor the vet tech have been identified immediately, delaying how rapidly they got antifungal medicines. The vet tech was placed on an antifungal for eight months, and her an infection lastly cleared. The first cat additionally bought an antifungal, however she bought sicker and her house owners had her euthanized. The second cat was handled rather more rapidly and recovered, NBC News reported.
While cats hardly ever unfold S. schenckii infections, that is not the case in South America, the place the Sporothrix brasiliensis species is rather more contagious.
The CDC is monitoring the unfold of that exact fungal an infection, additionally in cats, however it hasn’t but been detected on this nation.
The Kansas circumstances raised issues that S. braziliensis could possibly be the perpetrator, however testing revealed it was the much less contagious species.
“We are not sounding the alarm that Sporothrix schenckii is nearly as much of a concern as Sporothrix brasiliensis,” Hennessee mentioned.
“We know it’s a possibility that we could one day see Sporothrix brasiliensis cases in the U.S.,” he mentioned. “We want to raise awareness without making folks too alarmed.”
Most fungal infections, together with sporotrichosis, aren’t tracked by the CDC, NBC News reported.
“There is a big problem with fungal diseases, but they tend to run under the radar,” Casadevall mentioned.
“If you have an outdoor cat that has a lesion that has not healed, you should at least ask their veterinarian if it could be a fungus,” Casadevall mentioned. “You have to think about it.”
More info
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has extra on sporotrichosis.
SOURCES: Emerging Infectious Disease, April 10, 2024; CNN
