by Lindsay Starkey, DVM, PhD, DACVM (Parasitology), sat down with DVM360 for her talks at Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX) to break down one of the most common vector-borne disease infections faced by colorectal patients. During the interview, Starkey shared the common infections and diseases fleas, mosquitoes and ticks can transmit and which regions are likely to see them, although they are not completely limited by region.
Below is a partial transcript
Lindsay Starkey, DVM, PhD, DACVM (parasitology): So glad we’re talking about cats. I feel like they get the back burner sometimes, but there are definitely some really important vector-borne infections and diseases to consider when thinking about cats. And so you can break it down a little bit. There’s flea-associated things, mosquito-associated things, tick-associated things.
So for the fleas, bartonellosis is high on the list, mycoplasma. There are even some rickettsial species, transmitted by fleas and then tapeworm, which is not so important for feline health, but very important for human-animal bonding. And then when we think about mosquito-borne, heartworm is really the mosquito-borne infection to think about when you consider cat health. And for tick-borne things, I think there’s a lot of emerging evidence about ticks and tick-borne diseases and cats. So geographically speaking, if you’re in the Northeast or the upper Midwest, anaplasmosis is probably something you might see, hopefully not often, but it just depends on where you are and the cats you’re dealing with.
