Urgent Question About Coccidia

We have just adopted 2 new kittens, turns out they have coccidia, which the vet told us is highly contagious to our other 2 cats and us.

Vet told us we were going to have to clean out and disinfect all surfaces the kittens & cats have been in contact with, every day for the next two weeks, until the treatment is completed, including the litter boxes (i.e. every day the litter boxes will have to be dumped out and re-disinfected). Is this all absolutely necessary?

What about our clothes, sofas, chairs, bedding, carpet etc.?

Anyone have any information/advice they can share?

Shanynne
Extreme Kitty Lover

Cjoccidia is a spore that is picked up off fecal infected ground. The animal, cat or dog swallows the spores by licking or grooming.

The spores open up in the intestine and eject 8 more which then attach to small intestine. These cause the watery diarrhea.

Medicines are given, but they do not kill the parasite, the animals immune system needs to do that. The meds are given to help the immune system hold up until the kill ratio betters that than the grow ratio of the parasite. It is possible for a young animal to be infrected, but not infect the resident older cat.

At least two types can infect humans, Toxoplasma and Cryptosporidium. The type that the cats and dogs get, Isospora, does not infect humans.

As for the sanitary precautions. while I think cleaning the litter box is obviously very important, I would look into maybe using Lysol or some kind of anti-bacterial/fungicide or whatever to spray on the boxes. The other hting you need to be concerned aoubt is if these are young cats, dehydration is a factor that must be watched carefully.

This information was found on the internet by putting the word "Coccidia" in the adddress bar.

First of all, I don't know why your Vet would scare you and say Coccidia is something you personally have to worry about acquiring. It is not. The Coccidia protozoan that infects cats and dogs does not infect humans.

Coccidia resides in the intestinal tract, therefore anything that contacts the cats feces can become contaminated. So thorough cleaning is required. The better you clean up, the better the chances are of preventing re-infection.

Just to make you aware, the drugs your Vet is giving you for your cats only inhibits the Coccidia from multiplying, it does not kill it. The idea is to give your kittens enough time to develope immunity to the effects of Coccidia.

Baycox is the only approved drug I know of that will kill Coccidia, but it's not approved for use in the USA.

Albon is what the shelter here uses to treat coccidia. Anything that the poop from an infected cat comes in contact with is thoroughly disinfected. They throw away fabric toys(plush toys, mice, feathers, etc.), but I think that is just to be safe.

Thanks for your responses. I have bleached out all the floors and litter boxes and rinsed very well also so that the kitties don't get a problem from the bleach.

My vet prescribed something called "Albon". I hope it will help.

My 9 month old kitty is experiencing a bad case of diarhea....I'm rather devasted. Up until I brought the new kitties in, he was completely healthy. His poops were always solid, never had a problem. I am soooo upset.

I am also extremely angry with the Humane Society who had assured me the new kitties had been dewormed, etc. so much for that.

Will they heal from this?

Shanynne

They'll heal. I have had a litter of foster bebbies that had coccidia and e'thing was okay. You just need to make sure that they are hydrated and eating well.

In a sheltering eviron, coccidia can be very easy to miss! Even if they have the capability to test, it can be missed easily if they aren't shedding spores.

It's just one of those things...

Paige

Shelters usually deworm but coccidia is not affected by those meds. Plus a low-level coccidia infection that doesn't actually harm the animal is common, but stress can make the populations increase to the point where it's causing clinical symptoms.

If coccidia from animals affected humans I know a lot of people who'd be sick right now because most rabbits harbor a tiny population. And it's really common in kittens, strays, and shelter cats too.

Thank you everyone for your help My main concern right now is should I allow all the cats to interact with each other? Or, should I keep them apart.

Are they all being treated? If so, and if they were used to being together, it's probably less stressful for them if they are allowed to be together.

I have been letting them spend time together, but I am worried sick. My 9 mos old has the diahrea really bad, no sign of improvement yet. Any idea on how long it might take before they start to improve?

Thanks all for your responses.

It usually takes the entire treatment period(we treat for 10 days) for the stools to get better. However, that is in a stressful shelter environment.

Please don't be mad at the Humane Society. Coccidia is easy to miss as many cats get loose stools in the stressful shelter situation. They do their best to treats the cats, but it happens that things get overlooked & missed. Ideally, the shelters would be empty!

Coccidia is a worm type paracite that kittens that are rescued generally have and is very common. Meds from the vet should take that away in a few weeks. My kitty munchkin had coccidia when she came to my job and we rehabilitated her (coccidia, abandoned under a porch in the city, no other kittens, terribly bad upper resp. infection -affected the eyes!) and she has alot of problems still. anyway, it would be a good idea to keep the kittens in a totally separte room- what i did with munchy was keep her in my b/f's room in a large dog crate 9the ones made with bars, not like a big carrier) becasue she would be protected from spreading the paracites to the rest of the house, and to monotor her progree since she had multiple problems anyway. this way her litter box couild be cleaned without worry of infection of other animals... just until she was totally better...

I adopted a 1 year old cat and learned he has coccidia after taking him to my vet. He's been on Albon for 7 days now (supposed to be done at 10 days).  

I'm very concerned reading all of this as it seems my vet did not give me all the information I needed. I have another 8 month old cat and I already had him tested and it was negative but I am VERY concerned now that he may get it or the other cat will re-infect himself.  As part of the regular cat introduction process, they have been kept primarily in separate areas with separate litter boxes but they have been in contact with each other and in common areas together. I also have not been changing out the litter daily. I do clean it as soon as they use it, but not sterilizing anything. How much trouble am I in here?

Also my infected cat did poo on the rug and i scrubbed it as best I could using an enzyme cleaner, but does that kill it? I did cover that spot so the cats wont come in direct contact with it, but I've read the spores can live for up to a year

I have a pair of kittens 6.5 weeks. One is much sicker than the other. I got them from the vets office. They have been helpful. My kitten has really bloody, runnny diah just running out of him when u hold him. We are on day 3 of Albon amd its not improving his situation. His little but is so sore and swollen and cant sit down anymore on it. Hes so misserable. I have been keeping him hydrated, however hes just miserable. Im going to tale him in tom am and demand a different medicine. Hes the saddest little kitty i have seen. His brother is 2x his size and doing fine, just still having diah. Any advice?

I did Albon for 10 days...didn't work and now my other cat caught the coccidia. After my own research (most of it from all the wonderful people on this site) I asked my vet to  look into ponazuril, she wasn't familiar but after she looked into it she found the same info I did and prescribed it for both cats for 3 days. I don't know if this would be too harsh for a younger kitten, but I am hopeful it did the trick...will be getting them tested again next week to be sure. There was some diarrhea not nearly as bad as the albon caused. If your vet will give it to you, I would try this route.