Hundreds of thousands of cats have died on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus in recent months. The animals have contracted feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), a feline coronavirus that is almost always fatal to them.
Dinos Ayiomamitis, head of the Cat Protection and Welfare Society Cyprus and vice president of Cyprus Voice for Animals, estimates that more than 300,000 animals have died in the past six months. It is estimated that more than a million animals live on the “cat island”. The disease cannot be transmitted to humans.
Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is an infectious disease caused by the feline coronavirus (FCoV) that only affects cats and is usually fatal. Because there are no approved drugs for the disease, FIP is almost always a death sentence.
Treatment is extremely expensive
There are only two treatment options for FIP: the anti-Covid drug molnupiravir or the antiviral tablet GS-441524, which is chemically similar to the drug remdesivir, used to treat Covid-19.
Only GS-441524 is approved for importation into Cyprus, but treatment with it costs between €3,000 and €7,000 per cat, making it practically unaffordable. Should FIP spread further, it is feared that Cyprus could become the “island of dead cats”.
Source: Krone
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