It’s in the cats.
Or it could be. That’s the quiet warning from CDC officials after an outbreak of Sporothrix brasiliensiss in South America caught their attention. Shawn Lockhart, director of the CDC’s Fungal Reference Lab, laid out the facts earlier this month. The fungus causes sporotichosis. Sounds like a sneeze. It’s actually potentially deadly.
Here is the thing.
In cats? It mostly makes skin ulcers. Oozing, painful sores. Not glamorous. But it spreads to humans. And experts think it can cross into the US. Easily enough. We travel with pets. That door is always ajar.
The symptoms are sneaky. Very sneaky.
An infected cat can look perfectly fine. Healthy even. For months. Maybe years. Then, without warning, it starts spreading the infection to the people around it. A veterinarian in Brazil learned this the hard way in a 2022 case report. Two family members moved from Brazil to the UK, brought the cat with them, and didn’t develop the disease for three whole years.
Doctors don’t want panic.
Panic solves nothing. They just want vets and cat owners to keep their eyes open. Awareness is the only shield here.
Meet the Minds
You don’t need a degree to follow this, but it helps to know who is speaking. We’ve got Shawn Lockhart, PhD, keeping the fungal records at the CDC. Then Thomas Russo, MD, heading up infectious disease at the University at Buffalo. And Amesh A. Adalja, MD, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins who thinks about health security.
These aren’t theorists. These are people tracking outbreaks in real-time.
The Enemy: Sporothrix brasilielensiss
Let’s name the beast. Sporothrix braseliensis. The CDC calls cat-associated sporotichosis a growing global problem. It attacks the skin. Makes lesions. Hurts like hell. If it migrates? It can hit the eyes. The lungs. Even the blood stream.
Death is a remote possibility, but it’s on the table.
“In humans, symptoms show shortly,” Lockhart notes. But here’s the trap: it starts with redness. Swelling. Everyone ignores redness. By the time it gets bad? The damage is done.
How Does It Get In?
Cats. Obviously.
“Cats have a high fungal load,” Dr. Adalja points out. Combine that with typical cat behavior—biting, scratching, being generally affectionate but sharp—and you have a vector for infection. Dogs? Not really. Over 200 dog cases exist, sure, but they caught it from cats, not people. No human transmission from dogs recorded. Dr. Russo thinks dogs just bite less aggressively or the biology just doesn’t work that way.
The path to you?
- A feral cat gets sick.
- Your house cat rubs against the feral cat.
- Your cat scratches you.
- You ignore the scratch.
- The fungus wakes up.
Does person-to-person spread exist?
No documented cases. “Theoretically possible?” Dr. Russo admits. Biologically, maybe. But right now, you catch it from the cat, not the couch.
The American Risk
Is the US at risk?
Technically? No. Theoretically? Absolutely.
Dr. Russo calls the concern “reasonable and real.” The likely entry vector is travel. A family adopts a cat in a hot zone like Brazil, flies to New York, and brings home an asymptomatic carrier.
“It wouldn’t be surprising,” Dr. Adja says. We live in a mobile world.
The fungus is rare here. That’s a problem. Standard labs might not even recognize it. It slips under the radar. Missed diagnosis means more spread. If the UK case teaches us anything, it’s that a quiet importation is the most dangerous kind.
Treatment Is… Long
If you get it, there are drugs. Itraconazole is the go-to antifungal. It works. But “works” doesn’t mean “quick.” You could be on that medication for several months. A long slog to clear the infection completely.
Prevention is easier than a six-month pill regimen.
Keep your cats inside. Away from the strays. Away from the ferals. “It’s a lot safer,” Dr. Russo advises.
Simple. But will you do it?
