'More people may catch TB from pet cats'

31 March 2014 - 02:07 By ©The Daily Telegraph
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Mycobacterium tuberculosis Ziehl-Neelsen stain. The bacteria has been stained red to show up against the blue tissue.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis Ziehl-Neelsen stain. The bacteria has been stained red to show up against the blue tissue.
Image: CDC

More people in Britain might catch tuberculosis from their cats because the disease is so widespread in that country's wildlife, the president of the British Veterinary Association has warned.

Robin Hargreaves, a cat owner himself, said: "It is going to happen again - it's low risk, but not 'no risk'."

A couple in Berkshire, UK, were infected with TB by their pet kitten last week in the first recorded case of cat-to-human transmission.

Hargreaves said that cats would continue to contract the form of the disease carried by cattle even if it were eradicated in farm animals because it is endemic in Britain's wildlife.

"In the past, most cases of bovine TB in cats have been in hotspot areas for the disease, such as the southwest of England and Wales. Berkshire is not considered a TB hot spot but there was a cluster of nine infected cats there."

Jessica Livings, 19, contracted pneumonia linked to the bovine tuberculosis she caught from her pet kitten and had to have emergency surgery.

Her mother, Claire, contracted the dormant form of TB, which does not make the carrier sick.

In the outbreak among pets in Berkshire and Hampshire at least nine cats became infected with bovine tuberculosis in a few weeks last year.

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