Out of the frying pan, into the fire! No sooner, it seemed, had we rid our FIV+ suite of an upper respiratory infection, then we detected signs of ringworm among a number of our cats.
If you don’t know, ringworm is not a worm at all, but a fungus.
Among only a few cats, ringworm often clears up by itself.
But given the number of felines we have here, re-infection is all too likely.

The result’
Gloves, gowns, and hairnets worn by everyone who enters the suites; no cats adopted out or taken in; and oral medication and dipping for all of the cats here, including Jeremiah.
Worse still, Jeremiah hasn’t been able to go into his beloved solarium, and we had to throw out The Basket as a possible ringworm carrier.

Thank goodness our Big Guy is of such a mellow temperament! A cat his size could really create a problem for our staff, if he wanted to.
Luckily, he’s restricted his displeasure to some growls and what appears to be a bit of sulking … not that I blame him.

Happily, we completed the treatment during September and, even better, the first two fungal cultures have come out negative for ringworm.
This means that we have almost certainly eradicated the fungus, though we will be doing one more culture to confirm this.

Ringworm is not a medically serious disease, though there is some concern when an FIV+ cat is infected, as his or her immune system may have a difficult time fighting the infection.
We are very happy that none of the cats in the FIV Suite appear to be infected.

By the next update, I hope to be reporting that eradication of the infection has been confirmed and all is back to normal.