Sick cats in Cyprus are being given drugs for human covid-19 in a bid to eliminate a fatal feline coronavirus, providing hope of saving the island’s cat population from a virus that has already killed thousands of animals and has little sign of stopping.
Veterinarians began distributing molnupiravir, an anti-covid drug advertised under the name Lagevrio, to Cypriot cats on Tuesday, a day that coincided with International Cat Day.
Experts hope the drug, which was originally designed to treat covid-19 in humans and extracted from an inventory intended for that purpose, will help stop an outbreak of the feline coronavirus, dubbed FCoV-23, which has been devastating cats on the island since January. .
The virus, which is different from the human virus that causes Covid-19 and cannot be transmitted to humans, is common, spreads through feces and causes no symptoms or only a mild illness such as diarrhea.
Some feline coronavirus strains can cause feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), which is hopelessly near-fatal and experts believe a mutated, highly virulent feline coronavirus strain is causing the existing outbreak.
Research indicates that molnupiravir can help most FIP cats, and Christodoulos Pipis, the government’s director of veterinary services, told the Guardian that some 2,000 packets of the drug will be distributed to veterinarians in the coming weeks to combat the virus, a total of 80,000 pills.
Officials said cat owners will get the drug for about $2. 74 per tablet from veterinarians after a formal examination and diagnosis.
It is not known precisely how many cats have died as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Much of this uncertainty stems from the wider uncertainty about how many cats live in Cyprus, due to the gigantic wild or stray population for which the island is well known. Estimates tend to put the number of cats in Northern Cyprus at 1 million, meaning there are probably more cats than humans. He died in the outbreak since January. The dramatic figure was based on an estimated 20-30% mortality, according to The Guardian, and has not been independently verified. Local veterinarians said in the media that while they had no doubts about the severity of the outbreak, they questioned the veracity of the figure, estimating some 8,000 deaths in the first six months of the year.
The spread of the mutant strain of coronavirus in Cyprus has put veterinarians around the world on alert for outbreaks. According to The Guardian, there are already anecdotal reports from veterinarians of instances of FIP in spaces with major feral cat populations such as Lebanon, Turkey and Israel. .
Costas Himonas, a senior pharmacist at the Cyprus Ministry of Health, said tapping into stocks of human medicines would compromise the island’s ability to respond in the event of a new covid outbreak.
Experts warn of coronavirus after ‘thousands’ of cat deaths in Cyprus (Guardian)