Everything is spreading. We're a large interconnected world, and we'll inherit everyone's problems eventually. There are better alternatives, but it's not something people will seriously consider.
Reminds me of the TV Series "The Last of us" [0], which: "... is set decades after the collapse of society caused by a mass fungal infection that transforms its hosts into zombie-like creatures". Of course, minus the zombies.
Deadly to immunocompromised people. Basically everything could be deadly to them. Cats also rarely attack human proactively. So not really a big concern.
> “I’m convinced that half of the human cases that come from cats are people who are trying to stuff pills down their cat’s throats to treat the sporotrichosis,”
Do yourself a favor, crush the pill and put it in food. Problem solved. Difficult with multiple cats but I had two and one needed medication so I put this little guys on a window sill he loved to perch on which the other cat didn't care to reach.
> Do yourself a favor, crush the pill and put it in food.
This does not work on compounds sensitive to stomach acids. Some medications (both veterinarian and human) have to be specially coated to survive this environment [1], if you crush the pills the medication gets less effective, completely ineffective or, like ibuprofen, irritate the stomach. Or, worst case, the medication is designed for retarded release in the stomach acid - and now that you've crushed it, the entirety of the compound is dissolved in the stomach at once.
Please always ask your veterinarian/physician, the pharmacy staff and always read the medication's application notes because particularly physicians often are unaware and the same ingredient on the prescription might be fulfilled by a crushable or a non-crushable variant which only the pharmacist knows.
> Do yourself a favor, crush the pill and put it in food.
PROTIP never ever do this. The cat might just decide food is not worth having and develop liver and stomach issues. Bastards won't tell you anything is wrong, then they'll just crawl into a hole, as usual.
Source: I had the same not-good, very very bad idea and almost killed mine once. Had to go for a feeding tube and all. If you must give you cat medicine in pill form, just use one of those silicone pill "siringes" with flexible tips (and give it some Churu or similar to train it to tolerate medicine better). Washable, no fuss, quick and easy.
You shouldn't do this, as others have said. Also, some medications must not be crushed at all.
In my experience, the best way to give cats pills is a pill pocket, e.g. from Greenies [1]. The pocket is a hollow, soft cat treat. You put the pill inside the pocket, close it, and feed it to the cat. With some larger pills, you may have to split them up (if the medication allows). Some cats don't love the flavor, but you can use a sauce packet and coat it with some sauce.
We will see more and more fungi infecting mammals in the coming years.
Mammals and birds evolved higher body temperatures in part to protect from fungal infections.
As most fungi are dying above 37°C. But a high temperature summer is a selection pressure on any mushroom trying to survive, and hence might evolve to survive 40° summers and thus also survive in our bodies.
I really hope cordyceps is one of the last to do this step.
Please note that this is an extremely rare disease even in Brazil, where it came from. Asked my vet, and two cousins who also are vets, and all of them knew of the disease from scientific literature and government health bulletins, but only one of them had treated two actual cases, when he lived in northeastern region: two strays.
Brasil must have something like between 40 and 50 million cats (including strays). An infectious disease that killed thousands (what the article means? 1000, 2000? 10000?) while not ignorable, it is not exactly highly prevalent.
The article doesn't address treatment efficacy in humans. How is it treated? How effective is the treatment? Can this develop resistance to the treatment? The spread mechanisms and persistence are concerning, but without info on treatment I'm not sure how much I should freak out about this.
We have very few effective antifungals, and discovering new ones is an order of magnitude harder than discovering new antibiotics due to fungi being more closely related to animals (what's toxic to them is often toxic to us). Resistance is an ongoing problem and will worsen in time; Sporothrix already has strains that are resistant to mainline treatment. I recall reading that at least one developing fungal pathogen of concern is in practice impossible to clear from the body fully once established with existing antifungals.
A further issue still is that some fungi exhibit extreme resistance to sterilization; one of the nosocomial emerging fungal pathogens of concern, for example, can easily survive the peroxide fogging technique often used to clean high-risk hospital rooms even at several times the standard exposure duration and concentrations.
Additional issues include treatment compliance - clearing fungal infections can require taking the drug for months without missing a dose.
We should be very concerned about emerging pathogens in light of anthropogenic climate change, but with proper funding and attention this is not necessarily apocalyptic.
It includes instructions for the general population and for medical professionals, as well as a couple of technical reports with tons of references to recent studies.
So a disease that has killed 11,000 people in a country with a population of >200 million over 30 years is a ‘ginormous outbreak’?
This kind of hyper-scary overreaction from the CDC official being quoted and other government agents is a big cause of the current loss of trust in those institutions.
A few years ago monkeypox was gonna kill all of us and our dogs, I get “extreme heat” and “severe weather” warnings for days where the weather is 20* below the annual peak in my home town, and now a fungus is going to kill me and my cats.
"We report the first three cases of cat-transmitted sporotrichosis caused by Sporothrix brasiliensis outside South America, and the first ever cases of cat-transmitted sporotrichosis *in the United Kingdom*".
Sporotrichosis affects otherwise healthy individuals, often those working in agriculture or with plants or plant materials, such as packing straw or thatching. It also affects individuals exposed to the fungus during leisure outdoor activities associated with skin abrasions. Contact with domestic or feral cats, particularly among veterinarians and others looking after cats, may also lead to infection in some regions."
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 60.4 ms ] thread[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(TV_series)
Do yourself a favor, crush the pill and put it in food. Problem solved. Difficult with multiple cats but I had two and one needed medication so I put this little guys on a window sill he loved to perch on which the other cat didn't care to reach.
This does not work on compounds sensitive to stomach acids. Some medications (both veterinarian and human) have to be specially coated to survive this environment [1], if you crush the pills the medication gets less effective, completely ineffective or, like ibuprofen, irritate the stomach. Or, worst case, the medication is designed for retarded release in the stomach acid - and now that you've crushed it, the entirety of the compound is dissolved in the stomach at once.
Please always ask your veterinarian/physician, the pharmacy staff and always read the medication's application notes because particularly physicians often are unaware and the same ingredient on the prescription might be fulfilled by a crushable or a non-crushable variant which only the pharmacist knows.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magensaftresistente_Tablette
PROTIP never ever do this. The cat might just decide food is not worth having and develop liver and stomach issues. Bastards won't tell you anything is wrong, then they'll just crawl into a hole, as usual.
Source: I had the same not-good, very very bad idea and almost killed mine once. Had to go for a feeding tube and all. If you must give you cat medicine in pill form, just use one of those silicone pill "siringes" with flexible tips (and give it some Churu or similar to train it to tolerate medicine better). Washable, no fuss, quick and easy.
In my experience, the best way to give cats pills is a pill pocket, e.g. from Greenies [1]. The pocket is a hollow, soft cat treat. You put the pill inside the pocket, close it, and feed it to the cat. With some larger pills, you may have to split them up (if the medication allows). Some cats don't love the flavor, but you can use a sauce packet and coat it with some sauce.
[1] https://www.greenies.com/collections/cat-pill-pockets
That’s a little horrifying.
I really hope cordyceps is one of the last to do this step.
Brasil must have something like between 40 and 50 million cats (including strays). An infectious disease that killed thousands (what the article means? 1000, 2000? 10000?) while not ignorable, it is not exactly highly prevalent.
No! We must stop this at all costs
>and people
Eh, all right then. If it takes the cats out at least we'd be going with them
A further issue still is that some fungi exhibit extreme resistance to sterilization; one of the nosocomial emerging fungal pathogens of concern, for example, can easily survive the peroxide fogging technique often used to clean high-risk hospital rooms even at several times the standard exposure duration and concentrations.
Additional issues include treatment compliance - clearing fungal infections can require taking the drug for months without missing a dose.
We should be very concerned about emerging pathogens in light of anthropogenic climate change, but with proper funding and attention this is not necessarily apocalyptic.
It includes instructions for the general population and for medical professionals, as well as a couple of technical reports with tons of references to recent studies.
This kind of hyper-scary overreaction from the CDC official being quoted and other government agents is a big cause of the current loss of trust in those institutions.
A few years ago monkeypox was gonna kill all of us and our dogs, I get “extreme heat” and “severe weather” warnings for days where the weather is 20* below the annual peak in my home town, and now a fungus is going to kill me and my cats.
Ok boomer - just stop worrying please?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Sporotrichosis affects otherwise healthy individuals, often those working in agriculture or with plants or plant materials, such as packing straw or thatching. It also affects individuals exposed to the fungus during leisure outdoor activities associated with skin abrasions. Contact with domestic or feral cats, particularly among veterinarians and others looking after cats, may also lead to infection in some regions."
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sporotricho...