When a cat lives in your home, you definitely need to know that a pet can become infected with toxoplasmosis. What is this dangerous disease? This will be discussed. This is a serious ailment caused by the parasites of Toxoplasma gondii. To pets, you need to be extremely careful to prevent infection and get vaccinated against toxoplasmosis in time for cats.
Forms of Toxoplasma
Inside the animal during the disease there are 3 forms of the virus, these are:
- Cysts. They have a dense shell, and drugs do not penetrate through it. The causative agent is very resistant to the environment and dies at temperatures below -4 and above 37 degrees.
- Trophozoites. Propagate in all cells of the body during the acute stage.
- Oocysts. Formed in the small intestine in cats and excreted in feces. This is the main source of infection. After 2 days, spores begin to stand out from the feces, which are carried through the air and retain the ability to spread the infection throughout the year. In fresh feces, there are oocysts that are not able to infect another species of animal or person, therefore, removing the tray behind a sick animal immediately, it is impossible for a person to become infected with toxoplasmosis.
Transmission ways
Toxoplasma is secreted during the month with feces only in cats that have recently become infected. Further, the disease becomes latent, and the animal is not dangerous. When re-infected, immunity inhibits the spread of the virus, and it does not reach reproduction in the intestine.
Due to resistance in the external environment and the transmission path through air, water, food, objects, animals, toxoplasmosis infected almost all street cats and more than 50% of the world's population.
Symptoms of Toxoplasmosis in Cats
Immediately after the virus enters the body, it begins to multiply. Before the number of cells captured by parasites reaches a noticeable damage to the body, it usually takes 1-4 weeks. Only after that, in a cat, depending on the state of health and age, the disease will begin to occur in latent, moderate or acute form.
Symptoms and manifestations of the disease, depending on the form, are as follows:
- The latent form has the most mild symptoms and occurs in cats aged 1 to 7 years. The disease is expressed in the form of redness of the eyes and a runny nose. Less common is a short-term refusal of food and a decrease in appetite for a short time. Hosts attribute the symptoms to a cold, conjunctivitis, or food poisoning.
- The average form. The eyes turn red, purulent discharge appears. Due to damage to the mucous membrane and respiratory organs, the animal develops a runny nose, cough, sneezing, and breathing becomes difficult. Lethargy, refusal to eat. Significant upset stool. Body temperature rises. Starting from this stage, the animal becomes dangerous to humans, because infection occurs through all the excreted fluids.
- In acute form, all symptoms become more pronounced. Apathy, the animal does not get up, indifferent to everything. Severe fever. Salivation. At this stage, the virus affects the nervous system, so twitching of the tips of the ears and limbs, muscle cramps occur. In the worst case, paralysis.
Toxoplasmosis test
To establish an accurate diagnosis, a single examination of the animal is not enough, even if there are many signs of the disease. To prove the ingestion of just this infection, a number of tests are performed.
Serological analysis is the most accurate analysis that will determine the presence of immunoglobulins in the blood. If IgM antibodies are detected in the analysis and IgG is absent, this indicates an acute course of the disease, infection has occurred recently.
IgM and IgG indicators indicate that the immune system began to fight the virus and the disease subsided. IgG antibodies are detected a month after infection and persist throughout life, with a gradual decrease in titer.
If only IgG is present in the analysis, this means that the animal has been infected for a long time and now the virus poses no danger.
An analysis is made for the presence of oocysts. The cat takes a smear from the anus, after which the freshly collected stool is stained with a special solution that detects the presence of the virus. This analysis is the least informative, because when the symptoms appear, the animal’s body practically ceases to secrete oocysts, since more than two weeks pass from the moment of infection to the onset of symptoms.
PRC research is the most accurate, but also the most expensive type of analysis. Allows you to identify the virus in any kind of biomaterial.
Disease treatment
After diagnosis, treatment is prescribed only for severe symptoms of the disease, weakened cats, pregnant women, kittens up to one year old, or elderly animals over the age of 10 years. After the start of treatment, the symptoms disappear quickly, within 1-2 days, but the entire prescribed course should be given, on average it takes 6-7 days. Independently in medium and mild form, the disease disappears within a week.
Toxoplasmosis and pregnancy of cats
But is toxoplasmosis transmitted to kittens during pregnancy? If a pregnant cat has a primary infection with toxoplasmosis, then the disease has serious consequences for the offspring. Miscarriages in the early stages, stillbirths, the birth of live kittens with defects incompatible with later life are possible. Vaccination against toxoplasmosis for cats during pregnancy is not recommended.
If the infection occurred in the late stages of pregnancy, it threatens the kittens with deafness, decreased vision or complete blindness, and a delay in physical and mental development, which will subsequently lead to the inability to train the cat to live in an apartment. The cat will not be accustomed to walking on the tray, will not respond to the name, to understand that you cannot sharpen the claws on the sofa and not scratch the owners.
If the cat was already sick, then re-infection will not affect the development of kittens. Immune cells will not let parasites pass through the placental barrier.
Can a cat be cured by vaccination?
If you remember what causes the disease, it becomes clear that vaccinating cats against toxoplasmosis will not help overcome the disease. The vaccine protects the body through the introduction of small doses of the virus, in order to allow the body to overcome it, to develop protective antibodies and in the future to prevent the spread of the virus in the body upon repeated contact.
Toxoplasma is a parasite, it is inside the cell, so the vaccine will not work on it.
Vaccination against toxoplasmosis for cats will not cure the animal, so the owners need to carefully consider the prevention of the disease. And if an infection does occur, you need to know the signs of the course and consult a veterinarian in a timely manner.
Toxoplasmosis Prevention
It is better to adhere to the prevention of toxoplasmosis in cats than to treat them for the disease. It is much easier to protect domestic cats from infection than those who live in a private house or go outside. This is due to infection routes, oocytes can be located almost anywhere.
When arriving home, you should adhere to the following rules:
- Limit cat contact with street shoes and clothing.
- Wash hands after the street before stroking the meeting pet. Keep track of guests so that they also follow this rule.
- Wash feed bundles that are brought from the pet store. To bring a source of toxoplasma on them is easier than the lung. Moreover, he will have to be touched every day.
- Feed the cat industrial feed. If the animal is on natural nutrition and eats raw meat, it should be frozen for a long time before feeding.
- You need to cook meat until fully cooked.
- Avoid catching rodents and birds. Mosquito nets should be on the windows to avoid a possible attempt on a bird that has landed on a windowsill.
- Drinking water should only be boiled, filtered or bottled. She should wash everything that enters the cat’s food if he eats vegetables and fruits.
- If the owners decide to have another pet, it must be quarantined for at least three weeks. Contact between animals is allowed after this period and analysis for the presence of parasites in the blood.
Strengthening the immunity of cats
Strengthening immunity needs to be given special attention. After all, if a healthy animal is still infected with toxoplasmosis, it will transfer it in a mild form, almost imperceptibly and without harm to health.
Every year, even with good health, the cat needs to do a general and biochemical blood test to exclude the onset of problems that did not have time to affect their well-being. Every month it is necessary to treat the cat from fleas and every 3 months from worms, to be vaccinated against toxoplasmosis for cats. Nutrition must be balanced, premium feed. If possible, avoid stress.
The most important protection against disease is the annual vaccine against toxoplasmosis.
What else do you need to know?
What vaccinations do cats need to do?
Vaccination will protect the animal from the most common diseases, thereby preventing the immunity from falling during the period of the disease.
14 days before the first vaccination, the animal must be treated with a flea remedy and then, after 3 days, give a pill for worms. Exactly 10 days after the anthelmintic drug, the kitten is given the first vaccination, provided that no worms are found in the feces. If in doubt, you should give the medicine again after consulting a veterinarian.
At 2 months, the kitten is vaccinated against calcivirosis (inflammation of the mucous membranes and conjunctivitis), rhinotracheitis (the disease affects the respiratory system and causes severe inflammation of the eyes, mortality in 20% of cases), panleukopenia (plague, mortality over 90%) and chlamydia (fever and inflammation) mucous membrane of the eyelids and nose).
The vaccine is reintroduced after 21, maximum 28 days + rabies vaccine is given.
Revaccination should be carried out annually, because the effect of vaccination ends exactly one year later. If you delay the planned vaccination for more than a month, you will have to create protection, like a kitten, in two stages
The answer to the question is positive, whether cats are vaccinated against toxoplasmosis. But vaccinations can only be given to healthy animals, kittens aged 8 weeks. If the kitten's teeth change (age from 4 to 6 months), vaccination should not be carried out. Therefore, it is important to do everything on time, when he is 2 months old, so as not to leave the animal without protection for more than six months.
Knowing that this is toxoplasmosis, a caring owner will always protect his pet. And then he will give you a lot of positive and joy every day.