Fleas are a bother. All favored owners, peculiarly feline owners, cognize the annoyance they present. But fleas airs much of a hazard than conscionable an itchy pet.
“Fleas aren’t conscionable a nuisance; they really transportation disease,” says Erin Lashnits, adjunct prof of tiny carnal interior medicine astatine the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine.
Lashnits and colleagues astatine North Carolina State University precocious published probe successful the diary Parasites & Vectors, revealing precisely what disease-causing bacteria feline fleas carry. The study’s extremity was to recognize amended what flea-borne pathogens are contiguous successful idiosyncratic fleas and their implications connected cats and people.
The researchers explored these questions by collecting and examining the fleas connected free-roaming cats brought successful for spaying oregon neutering astatine assemblage Trap-Neuter-Release programs. The cats were past returned to their archetypal location.
A 2021 grant from the Companion Animal Fund Grant Program from the UW School of Veterinary Medicine supported the study.
Below, Lashnits discusses the findings and ways to support yourself and your feline from flea-borne illnesses.
UW SVM: This task is successful collaboration with North Carolina State University. How did this begin?
Lashnits: The archetypal author, Charlotte Manvell, is simply a PhD pupil astatine North Carolina State. When I was a PhD pupil there, she was an undergraduate. Working with Edward Breitschwerdt successful his Intercellular Pathogens Research Laboratory astatine NC State, we came up with this task to recognize much astir flea-borne bacterial pathogens. It’s a truly understudied benignant of vector-borne illness successful the U.S. Charlotte projected looking astatine the flea microbiome arsenic portion of her PhD, and I was capable to proceed this enactment with her arsenic a caller module subordinate present astatine UW-Madison.
What was the thought down looking astatine the idiosyncratic flea microbiome?
The thought was to trial idiosyncratic fleas and spot not conscionable what bacterial pathogens that origin illness were successful fleas, but besides what different bacteria were passim the flea. We cognize that ticks’ and mosquitoes’ microbiomes (the full assemblage of bacteria that unrecorded successful them) person a batch of power connected whether oregon not they tin transmit antithetic diseases. Nobody has looked astatine that for fleas. So, we wanted to bash that with idiosyncratic fleas. Because arsenic you mightiness imagine, if you determination a clump of fleas unneurotic successful a vial and look astatine their bacteria, you don’t cognize what immoderate 1 flea contains.
What types of pathogens did you find successful the fleas?
We recovered 3 antithetic bacterial genera were communal successful each the fleas: Bartonella, Rickettsia and Wolbachia. Many taxon of Bartonella and Rickettsia origin illness successful radical but besides tin origin illness successful cats.
What does this mean for feline owners and veterinarians?
My large takeaway is that fleas tin transportation pathogens and are not conscionable a nuisance oregon thing to overlook. Fortunately, determination are bully and casual ways to forestall fleas. Flea preventatives are effectual and not precise expensive. Flea prevention helps forestall flea infestation successful the archetypal place.
What is the adjacent measurement for this research?
Our adjacent measurement is looking astatine the cats. For this study, we lone looked astatine the fleas, but we’re present moving with cats too. We volition comparison the pathogens we’re uncovering successful the fleas to what pathogens we’re uncovering successful the free-roaming cats.
The large representation measurement is to adhd radical to the mix. Because ultimately, of course, we privation cats to beryllium healthy. We don’t privation them to get these diseases. But successful a batch of ways, it matters for people. Because if radical are exposed to diseases from the fleas connected free-roaming cats, that is simply a large interaction connected quality health.
We privation to cognize the hazard factors for radical getting these infections from fleas. What tin we bash to interruption that transmission rhythm earlier radical get infected and, ideally, earlier cats get infected? Would modular flea prevention methods interruption that transmission? Or is determination thing else? These are the questions we privation to answer.
Britta Wellenstein
English (US)