Re: Indonesia scientist says 1/5th of stray cats carry bird flu virus
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]July 22, 2007
Jakarta Post
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-2] CAUGHT IN THE ACT: A fruit vendor catches a cat attempting to enter his kiosk.
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City's cat numbers rapidly expanding, pose disease threat[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta[/FONT]
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Early one morning, while his children were still tucked up in bed, a man drove to a traditional market far away from his house, with a sack filled with kittens on the passenger's seat of the car.
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With four cats already, the family had decided to get rid of their female cat's latest litter in the usual way. Her five kittens were left at the market to fend for themselves.
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"It's always like that. Every time our cat has delivered kittens, which can be up to three times a year with at least three kittens in each pregnancy, we have to throw them away. We are caring for too many cats already," owner Anna Maria Anis, 30, said recently.
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Anna's family is far from being the only one in the city dumping kittens in the streets, where thousands of strays already live.
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A stroll down just about any street in town reveals just how widespread the problem is. Cats live in markets, upscale residential complexes, poor slums, sidewalk cafes and cemeteries.
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Animal lovers have long been concerned by the plight of the city's street cats. [/FONT]
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Cat Fancy Indonesia chairman Yulian Susanty said that the city's cat population needed to be controlled.
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"If it goes up to an alarming rate, it will be unhealthy for the people," she said. [/FONT]
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Cats can carry the toxoplasmosis virus, which if transmitted to humans can cause difficulties in pregnancy and childbirth.
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It can cause miscarriages and damage the nervous system of the baby. Cats can also carry rabies.
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"They can get it from dogs. Stray cats are more vulnerable to being attacked by dogs, making them prone to rabies, and then infecting humans with it," Yulian said.
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It was also recently discovered that cats can contract the bird flu virus, although as Yulian noted there is as yet no evidence to suggest that they can spread it among themselves or give it to humans.
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The exact number of stray cats in the city is not known, although Yulian said that with the short reproduction cycle of cats it would be a lot.
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"I can't give you an exact number. But in some places that we surveyed, such as in Manggarai Market and Tanah Karet graveyard, when we first surveyed the places two years ago, there are more than 100 female cats in each place. Today the number of cats there could reach the thousands," she said.
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She said that a female cat can give birth up to four times a year, meaning that each month 100 cats would probably produce 200 kittens.
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"In a year, there could be up to more than 700 cats," she said.
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"And that's only two sites in this city. Multiply them by the many other places in the city where stray cats live, then we have plenty," she said.
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She said that the city had to know what it would face if the cat population was left uncontrolled.
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"It would pose a serious disease threat, things like toxoplasmosis and rabies," she said.
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Yulian said the city needed to work harder to control the cat population.
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"First there should be a detailed mapping of the cat population in the city, they should be vaccinated against rabies, and there should be shelters for stray animals," she said. [/FONT]
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She said the population could be controlled by sterilizing the male cats and that her organization had attempted to work with the city administration on the issue.
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"I guess the administration had enough things on their minds though, with the recent flooding and other things," she said.
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Jakarta Animal Husbandry Agency head Edi Sutiarto said that city was currently concentrating on preventing the spread of bird flu but that there were centers for stray animals.
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"In Ragunan, there is a care center for animals, especially dogs and cats. It's privately owned but works in coordination with the agency," he said.
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He added that agency had sterilized some stray cats in the city but it had not been an intensive program.
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"Our personnel are concentrating on other stuff," he said.[/FONT]
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http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailcity.asp?fileid=20070721.D05[/FONT]
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