Rickettsial Organisms in Cats in the West Indies

a href="http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/3/570.htm"Kelly PJ, Lucas H, Eremeeva ME, Dirks KG, Rolain JM, Yowell C, Thomas R, Douglas T, Dasch GA, Raoult D. Rickettsia felis, West Indies. Emerg Infect Dis. 2010 Mar;16(3):570-1. br / /abr / A study examining levels of antibody to the spotted fever group of Rickettsial organisms in feral cats from a spay/neuter program on St. Kitts found that most (45/68) were seropositive for this group of bacteria. These bacteria are transmitted by ticks, and have been associated with disease in some animals. Interestingly, no ticks were found on any of the cats, but they were infested with fleas. Fleas are known to be the vector for one rickettsial organism, iRickettsia felis/i. This bacterium is not harmful to cats, but can cause spotted fever in humans. These investigators also looked for the organism itself in cat fleas, and found the organism in about 20% of the fleas they tested. This was the first identification of this organism in the Caribbean, and indicates cats may be sentinels for its presence in a particular locale. [MK]br / br / bRelated articles:/bbr / a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17276123"Hawley JR, Shaw SE, Lappin MR: Prevalence of Rickettsia felis DNA in the blood of cats and their fleas in the United States, J Feline Med Surg 9:258, 2007./abr / br / a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18786845"Bayliss DB, Morris AK, Horta MC et al: Prevalence of Rickettsia species antibodies and Rickettsia species DNA in the blood of cats with and without fever, J Feline Med Surg 11:266, 2009./abr / br / More on cat health: a href="http://www.winnfelinehealth.org/Health.html"Winn Feline Foundation Library/abr / a href="http://www.facebook.com/WinnFelineFoundation"Join us on Facebook/abr / a href="http://www.twitter.com/WinnFeline"Follow us on Twitter/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"Providing expert cat health information and supporting cat health research since 1968.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1170470470666539402-3149227594814209501?l=winnfelinehealth.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?a=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?a=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:UT3xtbGYFzA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?d=UT3xtbGYFzA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?a=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?a=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?i=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?a=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?i=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?a=nf_3hyHHyqI:DLIhnzVlV9A:oCFASsrFxfc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation?d=oCFASsrFxfc" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/CatHealthNewsFromTheWinnFelineFoundation/~4/nf_3hyHHyqI" height="1" width="1"/

Rickettsial Infections in Cats

Bayliss, D. B., A. K. Morris, et al. (2009). "Prevalence of Rickettsia species antibodies and Rickettsia species DNA in the blood of cats with and without fever." J Feline Med Surg 11(4): 266-70.

The purpose of the study was to determine if cats with a fever were more likely to have evidence of rickettsial infection than healthy, age-matched, control cats with no fever. Fever was determined to be a body temperature of over 102.5F (39.2C). The prevalence of Rickettsia species DNA in blood from clinically ill cats has not been determined. Rickettsia species antibodies have been detected in some cats but it is unknown whether infected cats develop clinical signs. Fever in humans has been attributed at times to “stealth” organisms that can evade the immune system, cause subtle clinical signs, and are not easily detectable by traditional diagnostic methods. Investigators questioned whether Rickettsia species might fill such a role in cats. The cat flea has been identified as a host and biological vector of R. felis and the question of whether the flea may be capable of transmitting the organism to cats is unanswered. The study results did not show an association between fever in cats and Rickettsia species DNA in blood or serologic evidence of exposure to R. felis. It would be optimal though to collect samples from clinically ill cats more than one time to further study this issue. [VT]
>> PubMed Abstract

Related articles:
Hawley, J. R., S. E. Shaw, et al. (2007). "Prevalence of Rickettsia felis DNA in the blood of cats and their fleas in the United States." J Feline Med Surg 9(3): 258-62.
>> PubMed Abstract

Kamrani, A., V. R. Parreira, et al. (2008). "The prevalence of Bartonella, hemoplasma, and Rickettsia felis infections in domestic cats and in cat fleas in Ontario." Can J Vet Res 72(5): 411-9.
>> Free full text article

More on cat health: Winn Feline Foundation Library
Join us on Facebook