When Julie Gray’s cat Sky fell ill earlier this year, she immediately knew he would have just days to live.
Just months earlier, the retired Brit, who lives in Paphos, Cyprus, had already lost Smokey — Sky’s younger brother — to what she insists was the same illness.
No test confirmed what was to blame for four-year-old Smokey’s sudden refusal to eat or swollen belly.
But vets were able to pinpoint what killed Sky, a nine-year-old who suffered exactly the same symptoms.
It was a coronavirus. From the same family as what sparked Covid.
Julie told MailOnline that Sky’s health deteriorated so quickly, that he died before his FIP test came back positive
‘Next week will be eight weeks since Merlin was diagnosed with FIP and I am keeping everything crossed for him,’ says Janne
Yet, instead of gripping humans, this particular pathogen seeks cats.
Cyprus is currently battling an unprecedented feline coronavirus outbreak, which is sweeping country and killing thousands of moggies. Experts have warned the crisis is turning the Mediterranean holiday hotspot into the ‘island of dead cats’.
And, if experts are to be believed, it is heading to Britain.
Locals have shared their heartbreak as the virus is sweeping through the island’s pets.
Julie, a former IT director, told MailOnline that Sky’s health deteriorated so quickly, that he died before his FIP test came back positive.
She said: ‘After losing our four-year-old cat Smokey to what seemed to be FIP in February, he had all the symptoms but there was no confirmed test, we were devastated when Sky, our nine-year-old male cat started showing the same symptoms, that we by then knew.
‘His belly swelled and he stopped eating. We took him to the vet and they immediately carried out blood tests and took fluid from his belly to test that.
‘All the signs were FIP, but we needed to do a PCR test to confirm. The test was going to take five days, so Sky stayed with the vet where he was force-fed and put on a drip.
‘It was so sad to see him in a cage, so after four days, we brought him home to see if we could help him feel more comfortable. It was awful — he was so restless and sick, and force feeding him was heartbreaking.
‘That night he went out while we slept and I couldn’t find him the next day. I thought he had gone off to die, but then one of our other cats found him under the bushes very depressed and in pain.
‘We rushed him to the vets and immediately had him put to sleep — we could not see him suffer anymore. The test finally came back the next day and it was positive.’
Both stray and domestic cats have been struck by feline infections peritonitis (FIP), which does not infect humans, since the outbreak was first spotted in January.
Thousands of cats have been infected so far this year — suffering a fever, abdominal swelling, energy loss and increased hostility.
Dr Demetris Epaminondas, vice-president of the Pancyprian Veterinary Association, said local vets have reported an ‘alarming increase’, after the first deaths were reported in the capital Nicosia in January.
The virus spread island-wide in just four months.
Dr Epaminondas says this is the first explosion of cases of this magnitude, with the clusters usually restricted to catteries and kittens and young cats are most affected.
Researchers are frantically genetically sequencing the coronavirus, which they believe has mutated to become more virulent.
One school of thought is that cats exposed to the Covid pandemic may have developed antibodies to that type of coronavirus, forcing the feline version to mutate and become more harmful.
However, more research is needed to understand exactly what has happened.
Others have told of their cats being left fighting for their life following a FIP infection.
It was a village councillor who convinced Janne Stoten, 66, to take in a stray kitten two years ago – and since then that kitten has lost a few of his nine lives, with the latest threat coming from FIP.
‘Honestly, he was skinniest, scrappiest, mankiest looking little cat I’d ever seen, but I just fell in love with him. I took him in and called him Merlin,’ says Janne, who lives in Pissouri, in the south of the island.
Shortly after Merlin was brought home, he lost the top of his scalp and the skin down his back legs after getting caught under a speeding motorbike. He survived that, only to contract wet FIP at the end of May.
‘I noticed his belly was getting bigger,’ says Janne. ‘I had no idea of FIP at that stage, but when I took him to the vet, they told they had seen many, many more cats coming in with FIP. They then took fluid from his abdomen and it confirmed both Covid and FIP.
‘I was in tears. They told me he might only have eight weeks left to live.’
Due to complications with treatment, Merlin rallied briefly before relapsing – losing his appetite and growing increasingly lethargic. ‘At one point, he was so thin I could close my hand around his abdomen.’
Thankfully, Merlin slowly began to regain his strength and now Janne dares hope there could be light at the end of a very dark tunnel for her pet.
Another local, Alison Moore, brought a rescue kitten home in May — little knowing that six weeks later Mbili would be fighting for his life, another victim of FIP
A stray cat eats at a cemetery in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, on June 14 2023
A domestic cat suffering from FIP in quarantine at a vet in Nicosia on June 20 2023
‘Next week will be eight weeks since Merlin was diagnosed with FIP and I am keeping everything crossed for him.
‘This disease is devastating and something needs to be done to stop it because cats are suffering in huge numbers, and so are the people who love them.’
Another local, Alison Moore, brought a rescue kitten home in May — little knowing that six weeks later he would be fighting for his life, another victim of FIP.
The former IT worker from Devon found tiny Mbili — pronounced Bili — at a cat sanctuary in the Paphos region of Cyprus, when he was four months old.
‘He was the smallest of all the kitten there and so timid,’ says Alison. ‘As soon as I saw him, I knew I had to get him out and bring him home.’
For Alison, rescuing Mbili was a way to mend a heart broken by the loss of her cat Bandit, an elderly pet that passed away from cancer. However, within weeks of homing Mbili, the kitten began to falter.
‘I first noticed something was wrong when he showed signs of gingivitis and didn’t want to eat. His eyes grew cloudy and I treated them with steroid drops on the advice of the vet.
‘But then he began to grow weaker and weaker until he was no longer able to jump up. He began sleeping a lot, he lost his appetite and then his back legs began to go. That’s when the vet confirmed FIP.’
Alison now faces an excruciating wait to see if little Mbili will be one of the lucky ones to survive this devastating illness.
‘It’s heartbreaking,’ says Alison. ‘His treatment can be painful and he is so tiny, but right now we have no other option. He is responding and as long as he does, I will continue to fight for him.’
The true toll of the FIP outbreak is unclear.
Local charities estimate that 300,000 cats have died since January.
However, the Pancyprian Veterinary Association said this figure is greatly exaggerated. It believes the true toll is closer to 8,000.
It noted that this is much higher than previous years, with 2,800 cases logged in 2022 and 1,350 in 2021.
But with the island home to around 1million cats, many of which are strays, the number of fatalities is unclear.
Vasiliki Mani, 38, a member of several animal welfare organisations in Cyprus, said that if FIP continues to spread, Cyprus will become ‘the island of dead cats’.
Cyprus has a long history with felines, being the first place to treat them as pets, around 9,500 years ago.
A stray cat eats at a shelter established by the municipality in Nicosia on June 22, 2023
An abandoned cat suffering from FIP at a shelter established by the municipality in Nicosia on June 22, 2023
An abandoned cat eats at a shelter established by the municipality in Nicosia on June 22, 2023
However, its residents are now struggling to treat their infected cats.
An antiviral tablet, GS-441524, chemically similar to the Covid treatment remdesivir, is approved for animal use in Britain and for importation to Cyprus.
But it is expensive and there is no supply in Cyprus, forcing many pet owners to turn to the black market.
The crisis in Cyprus has left many worried that FIP could spread further afield.
An outbreak is suspected to be also spreading across cat populations in nearby Lebanon, Israel and Turkey, although this cannot be confirmed.
Dr Charalampos Attipa, who has been investigating the outbreak from the University of Edinburgh, said: ‘It spread like wildfire and is like nothing we have seen in a lifetime.
‘The UK is at risk from the virus, because a notable number of British people are based permanently or seasonally in Cyprus.
‘People travel with their pets, and the advice is for them to get their cats tested for the coronavirus antibody before they leave Cyprus. But that can’t be enforced at this stage.
‘It is very much like what we faced with the human coronavirus, but for the cat population, so it is alarming.’
However, Professor James Wood, a veterinary epidemiologist at Cambridge University, told MailOnline that FIP may pose less of a threat to cats in the UK than those in Cyprus.
He said: ‘As cats generally do not live outside in large colonies in the UK, it would be reasonable to expect there to be less transmission in the UK.
‘Caution is always warranted in these situations, but there does not seem to be an immediate threat to British cats from this.’
He noted that the FIP virus is already present in UK cats and has been for years and much of the spread in Cyprus is linked with the animals living in large groups.
Veterinarian Kostis Larkou tends to a cat suffering from FIP at clinic in Nicosia on June 20, 2023
A stray cat sits on a tombstone at a cemetery in Nicosia on June 14, 2023
Dr Rachael Tarlinton, an associate professor of veterinary cellular microbiology at the University of Nottingham, told MailOnline that the situation ‘isn’t something to panic about’.
She said that FIP is a ‘complicated disease’ that most cats have already been infected — suffering mild diarrhoea and recovering without treatment.
Dr Tarlinton added: ‘We don’t have a vaccine for it, in part because demand for it is low.’
The version that spreads in the UK is only serious in a minority of cases, when the virus spreads from the gut into blood cells that are a vital part of the body’s immune response, she said. This then triggers FIP.
‘Those cats are unable to control the virus infection so it replicates out of control and their immune system overreacts to it,’ Dr Tarlinton said.
She said: ‘Until recently, we couldn’t treat it and pretty much all FIP affected cats died, but a lot of the drugs that were developed for SARS-CoV-2 work really well for FIP and they now have a good recovery rate.
But the drugs are expensive and aren’t legally available for veterinary use in some places – they are in the UK.
‘We typically see outbreaks of disease occasionally in places with lots of young cats (being infected for the first time with feline coronavirus) so places like cat shelters. Adult cats are usually considered very low risk.’
Dr Justine Shotton, senior vice president of the British Veterinary Association, told MailOnline: ‘The reported cases of feline infectious peritonitis in Cyprus are understandably concerning.
‘However, FIP is a condition seen in cats in the UK and so while tests are ongoing to determine if this is a new strain of the virus, our current advice for cat owners is to contact their vet if they have any concerns about their pet’s health or welfare and discuss any preventative healthcare options.
‘Cats being imported from Cyprus to the UK should be tested for the virus before travel and not be moved if they test positive.
‘As a precautionary measure, anyone travelling to Cyprus for a holiday should avoid touching cats there and make sure to clean the soles of their shoes and suitcase wheels before leaving to avoid inadvertently bringing the virus into the UK.’
