Vets in Cyprus have received the first batch of human anti-Covid medication to treat sick cats on the island after thousands have died from a viral disease caused by feline coronavirus.
The island’s health ministry began discharging the treatment on Tuesday amid an alarming increase in feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) cases, caused by feline coronavirus, which is different from the virus that causes Covid-19 in humans.
The disease is fatal if left untreated.
Labelled as the “FCoV-23 outbreak”, the disease has spread to indoor cats as well as outdoor cats and was first noticed on the island in January. The disease cannot be spread to humans.
The government’s veterinary services director told the Guardian tha the first stock of 500 boxes of medication has been received.
It will be the first batch of 2,000 packages that will be made available over the next month, with around 80,000 anti-Covid pills being distributed, Christodoulos Pipis said.
There’s no risk that current pharmaceutical stocks will be depleted to the point where treatment of any Covid-19 surge in people would be affected, a senior Health Ministry pharmacist told AP.
A professor at the University of Cyprus, who lost her cat to the disease last weekend, described Cyprus as “the slaughterhouse for animals”, the Guardian reports.
Zelia Gregoriou criticised the government for a prior lack of action, claiming “they would rather let them die”.
But Cyprus’ veterinarians association on Friday praised the government decision to allow its stock of human coronavirus medication to be used on cats.
The association had petitioned the government for access to the medication at “reasonable prices” from the beginning of this year, when the mutation that causes lethal FIP began to noticeably crop up.
Cyprus Veterinary Services head Hristodoulos Pipis told the state broadcaster that cat owners can receive medication in pill form at 2.5 euros ( £2.16) for each pill at their local veterinarian’s office following a formal examination and diagnosis.
The medication’s brand name is Lagevrio and its active ingredient is Molnupiravir.
Local animal activists had claimed that the mutation had killed as many as 300,000 cats, but local vets say that’s an exaggeration. An association survey of 35 veterinary clinics indicated an island-wide total of about 8,000 deaths.
FIP is nearly always fatal if left untreated, but medication can nurse cats back to health in approximately 85 per cent of cases in both the “wet” and “dry” forms of the illness.
What made FIP treatment difficult was the high price of the medication that activists said put it out of reach of many cat care givers.
Spread through contact with cat faeces, the feline coronavirus has been around since 1963. Previous epidemics eventually fizzled out without the use of any medication.
Measures have already been put in place to prevent the export of the mutation through mandatory medical check-ups of all felines destined for adoption abroad.
It’s unclear how many feral cats live in Cyprus, where they are generally beloved and have a long history dating back thousands of years.
