{"id":5212,"date":"2023-11-14T16:21:17","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T22:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5212"},"modified":"2023-11-14T16:21:20","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T22:21:20","slug":"new-feline-coronavirus-blamed-for-thousands-of-cat-deaths-in-cyprus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/11\/14\/new-feline-coronavirus-blamed-for-thousands-of-cat-deaths-in-cyprus\/","title":{"rendered":"New feline coronavirus blamed for thousands of cat deaths in Cyprus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/new-feline-coronavirus-blamed-thousands-cat-deaths-cyprus\">Science<\/a> The previously undescribed strain appears to have borrowed genetic information from a highly virulent canine coronavirus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When thousands of cats started to die this year on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, nicknamed the \u201cisland of cats\u201d for its 1-million-strong feline population, the crisis made international news. The animals had fevers, swollen bellies, and lethargy\u2014symptoms that pointed to feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), a common condition caused by a type of cat coronavirus. But scientists struggled to explain the apparent explosion in cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, researchers have identified a possible culprit: a new strain of feline coronavirus that has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2023.11.08.566182v1\">coopted key RNA sequences<\/a>&nbsp;from a highly virulent dog pathogen called pantropic canine coronavirus (pCCoV). The findings, posted as a preprint last week on&nbsp;bioRxiv, could help explain how severe illness managed to spread so widely among cats on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve done a great job in identifying what looks to be a very interesting and concerning virus,\u201d&nbsp;says Gary Whittaker, a virologist at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine who was not involved in the research. Although canine-feline coronavirus crossovers have been reported before, he says, this is the first documented case of a cat coronavirus combining with pCCoV, apparently leading to a&nbsp;\u201cperfect storm of both disease and transmissibility.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science The previously undescribed strain appears to have borrowed genetic information from a highly virulent canine coronavirus. When thousands of cats started to die this year on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, nicknamed the \u201cisland of cats\u201d for its 1-million-strong feline population, the crisis made international news. The animals had fevers, swollen bellies, and lethargy\u2014symptoms [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Screenshot-2023-11-14-at-17.20.11.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5214,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212\/revisions\/5214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}