Attention!! How Your Cat at Home Can Cause Infectious Disease of Cat Scratch Disease[CSD]

People who keep animals like cats at home have the chance to be infected with zoonotic disease which may cause some complications. Cats as an example can cause Cat Scratch Disease which is caused by the bacterium bartonella henselae. Cat Scratch Disease has worldwide distribution and has been described in all areas of North America.

Thus the disease can occur even at your home if you are keeping cats in your house. It would be better to understand how person can get the disease, its symptoms, treatment and diagnosis as well as the danger of cat scratch disease.

The CSD is commonly diagnosed in children but adults can also get the disease. you can get cat scratch fever through the bite from a cat or scratch. The infection progress during the time when patient is suffering from injury within 3 to 14 days after the skin is broken.

Report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that about 40% of cats carry Bartonela henselae at some time in their lives but most of infected cats with bacteria show no signs of illness. Most of the time Kittens younger than 1 year are likely exposed to the bartonella henselae  infection and they can spread germ to people.

Cats always exposed to bartonella infectious by fleas which responsible to spread bartonella infectious horizontally. Fleas may spread bacteria to either  cat to cat or directly to human. This means your cat might be infected with disease when it is exposed to fleas. Since the cat owner is frequently interacts with cat and if a cat is infected it is going to put bartonella bacteria at your skin. Bartonella henselae in their saliva acts vectors through biting or crawling on your skin.

 Some signs may help to identify a person infected with cat scratch disease. If you have seen the followings symptoms and you keep cat at your home then it is probably bartonella might be attacking your skin, these signs and symptoms include the followings.

Regional lymphadenopathy, It is common to see cat scratch disease (SCD) causes painful on certain parts of the body, swollen lymph nodes near a place of bite or scratch or on the neck. This symptom may develop within a period of 1 week to 2 week. America Family Physician state that CSD causes local lymphadenopathy to 85% to 90%  of patients. This happen when you are exposed to the infected cat therefore if you have seen someone who keep cat has  Regional lymphadenopathy then that person may have Cat Scratch Disease.

In rare cases Cat Scratch Fever may develop neurological and cardiac problems, inflammation of brain, brain damage and injury and infection of the heart inner lining that involves heart valves may sometimes appear to the patient of Cat Scratch Fever.

Apart from these two Signs and Symptoms you should be aware on how the disease is being transmitted from flea to cat  and to human, Transmission process of cat scratch disease is as follow

As I have shown that cat is responsible to transmit CSD to human since cats are natural reservoir of the Bartonella henselae but Kittens are more likely to transmit the disease than Adult cats. Cats could be infected through inoculating from the flea that carrying bartonella henselae hence when you contaminate with the infected cat by touching its bite or its scratch or its saliva then a bacteria will be transmitted into your body and causing Cat Scratch Disease [CSD] to you.

The Diagnostic  Test of Cat Scratch Disease has some challenges especially on process of culturing Bartonella  henselae bacteria, Stephen A Klotz and Colleague on article known Cat Scratch Disease have shown that Bartonella henselae are difficult to culture but Serology is the best initial Diagnostic test and it can be performed by direct fluorescent assay or enzyme linked immunosorbent  assay.

The best treatment of Cat Scratch Disease is by using antibiotic, the antibiotic used to treat cat scratch disease is azithromycin (Zithromax). This antibiotic is very effective to treat CSD.

Up to this point you have now get much information of cat scratch disease but there is one thing I have not touched and that is Preventive measures of Cat Scratch Disease, You can prevent cat scratch disease by doing the followings.

-Control all cat fleas around your environment and wash your hand after handling a cat.
-Use your time to ensure cat is inside the house most of the time because cats exposed to fleas when they are outside.