Other clinical signs include fever, mouth ulcers, eye infections, blindness, lameness and diarrhea. People who contract this disease sometimes require treatment which may include antibiotics, analgesics, bed rest, and heat applied to painful lymph nodes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cat-scratch fever, acquired from cats infected by fleas, affects about 22,000 people each year, of which at least 2,000 people need hospital care. This disease can cause encephalitis in young children and death in individuals with compromised immune systems. Up to 80 percent of the cats in some studies were infected with this disease.
Cats show no symptoms of the disease.
Toxoplasmosis is caused by a tiny protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, which resides in the intestinal tract of cats and in the tissues of many animals and rodents. If contracted by a pregnant woman in her first trimester, it can cause abortion of the fetus or blindness, retardation, or seizures in the newborn. Toxoplasmosis can cause serious illness in children and even death in individuals with weakened immune systems. A suspected outbreak of toxoplasmosis occurred in British Columbia in 1995. One hundred and ten people were believed to have acquired acute infections from the feces of infected domestic feral cats which entered the drinking water supply.