After you have paid a heavy toll to the outbreak of coronavirus, the European monitors any possible resurgence of the disease. Then, when a virus rare appears at the very bottom of Italy in one of the animals most common on the Old continent, the panic quickly becomes palpable. This is the story of international Mail after a cat has contracted Lyssavirus close to the one that causes the rage.
it All starts in mid-June, when the small feline household falls ill at Arezzo, in Tuscany, according to La Repubblica. "On June 12, the family owner of the animal, a cat of two years, she returned home after two days outside of Arezzo. The cat had become very aggressive and has bitten three members of the family. It was then brought to a veterinarian, who also was assaulted," says the Italian newspaper. The animal is sent to a structure specialized in neurological problems, where he died. The analysis of his brain ultimately allows to reveal the disease from which it reaches, a type of Lyssavirus is extremely rare. "It has been identified only once in history, in a bat of the Caucasus, in 2002," said Il Fatto Quotidiano.
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the ministry of Health is mobilizing
Thirteen people are then subjected to a preventive treatment, and the mayor of Arezzo does not want to take any risk : the other animals of the family are "sequestered," says the Italian newspaper, and the dogs of the town can't get through that leash. The residents are even called to report to the authorities any "change of behavior suddenly" of their four-legged companion. The top of the State, the case also concerned. "The ministry of Health has constituted a technical group and scientific to examine this history," also tells Il Fatto Quotidiano.
For the professor Canio Bonavoglia, an infectious disease specialist in the department of veterinary medicine, university of Bari, "it is probably part of a bat affect the Lyssavirus, which fell to the ground, paralyzed by the disease. The cat has approached to it, has been bitten and has contracted the virus", he explains to the Corriere della sera. A combination of circumstances "almost impossible to imagine," adds Canio Bonavoglia, sweeping away any concern about a risk to man.
