The Cat Area 3: Chlamydia in Cats

Chlamydia in cats (Feline Chlamydia)

Good day colleagues and friends, so today we will talk a little bit about a respiratory infection in cats called Feline Chlamydia, also known as Feline Chlamydiosis.

The first thing we need to know about this disease is that it is caused by a bacteria called Chlamydia psitacci, this is an intracellular bacteria (a bacteria which lives inside the host's cells), The family Chlamydiae is now divided into two genera, Chlamydia and Chlamydophila. The genus Chlamydophila contains four species, including Chlamydophila felis, a causative agent for conjunctivitis in cats.

This is a zoonotic disease, this means that it is a transmissible disease to humans as well.

How does the infection takes place:

Transmission can take place even without direct contact with an infected animal, as the molecules from a cough or sneeze can travel across a room, a human caretaker can carry the bacteria and spread it by touch, or the cat may come into contact with a contaminated object, such as in a bedding or feeding area.

The bacteria attaches itself to the mucosal cells of the conjunctiva, gastrointestinal and genital tracts. The eyes become red, inflamed and develop a discharge, due to basic immune response.

There are 2 basic ways of infection:

Direct: Contact with an infected cat, such as nasal and ocular discharges. Kittens may become infected during the birth process.

Indirect: even though this bacteria doesn't survive well in the environment, contact with food bowls, bedding, litter trays, pet owner's hands etc. It is always advisable to exercise caution when dealing with infected cats and practice routine hand washing and disinfecting in order to minimize the risks of infecting other cats.

Clinical signs of Chlamydia in cats:

-sneezing

-watery eyes

-discharge from eyes

-coughing

-difficulty breathing

-runny nose

-anorexia (lack of appetite)

-fever

-pneumonia

-mucus enlargement

-nose lesions

We do have to consider, that all those signs are not always present altogether.  The predominant clinical sign of Chlamydia in cats is conjunctivitis; an abnormal eye discharge due to inflammation of the conjunctiva, the membrane lining the inside of the eyelid and the white part of the eye itself, (known as the sclera). The eyes initially develop a watery  discharge, as the infection progresses, the conjunctiva becomes reddened and swollen and the discharge becomes thicker. It may start out with discharge from one eye but usually, spreads to both eyes. Symptoms usually appear around 5 days after exposure.

It is possible for a cat to appear outwardly healthy but be shedding the bacteria which can be passed onto other cats via eye discharge.

Chlamydiosis can affect any cats but it is more often seen in kittens between 5 and 9 months of age and cats in overcrowded or stressful environments such as animal shelters.

In young kittens, chlamydiosis may cause pneumonia.


Now lets go to the part of how we know that it is actually chlamydiosis, the DIAGNOSE part...

Chlamydia can be diagnosed by ultimate and very complicated methods such as PCR (polymerase chain reaction), or Immunofluorescent assay (IFA), but the good news is that we don't really have to go that far, nor complicate ourselves, because we can also do a simple swap and send it to the lab for a bacterial culture. Sure it could take a couple of days to grow, but it is simple, cheap, and accurate, because really, chlamydiosis is not hard to diagnose with clinical signs, so mainly we do a bacterial culture just to confirm.

How do we treat chlamydiosis?

I'm pretty sure you all know the answer, antibiotics! yes, but what kind of antibiotics are the right suit for this bacteria...

As we know, Chlamydia psitacci is a respiratory tract bacteria, so we mainly want to go with respiratory antibiotics such as clindamicyn, tetracycline or doxycycline, but also we want to give oral antibiotics, or even topic antibiotics, this is so we don't give that bacteria a chance to flee to another organ and grow resistance. In to the eyes, we should give antibiotics as chloranphenicol or even terramycin(oxytetracycline), and let's not forget about the pain killers for the eyes, such as diclofenac (you must remember to give those in drops, and make sure to apply those drops as cold as just taken out of the fridge, because if you don't, trust me, the cat's eyes are going to feel in burning pain, yes diclofecnac burns the eyes).  

Feline Chlamydiosis is a disease that may take from 3 or 4 weeks, sometimes even up to 3 months if the treatment is not well given. 

Also I would like to add, that we can always prevent chlamydia infection among our patients, as most of you know, the best way is to keep them separate, often clean their areas (speacially with disinfectant), wash our hands before and after touching, holding, or lifting any of our patients and of course, vaccinating the healthy cats, we most keep our protocols for isolated patients. If the cats belong to a shelter, the best thing to do is to completely isolate the new, unvaccinated and sick cats from the normal, healthy ones, for at least 1-2 weeks (which is the regular time for incubation of a pathogen in a host's body to develop a disease).

I hope this is helpful for you, or at least of interest, if you have any questions feel free to ask them, have a great weekend!

MVZ Carolina Pruneda