2 instances when cat many owners destroyed their cats believing they'd catch a fatal disease from them

There have been a couple of high-profile instances when many cat owners deliberately destroyed their cat companions because they believed that they might catch a fatal disease from them.

AIDS in humans set off panic in nervous cat owners who killed their cats. Image: CNN.

FIV

Feline AIDS as it is sometimes called or Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) was discovered in 1986. In June 1981, the first cases of the illness now known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported from Los Angeles in five young homosexual men diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and other opportunistic infections (CDC).

The news media reported on FIV in a way which scared the population into believing that they could catch the disease from their cats.

This led to some cat owners panicking and killing their cats. Within hours of the newspaper reports nervous cat owners were taking their cats to shelters and asking them to euthanise them or find new homes.

Eventually the news media researched the facts and reported that the virus that causes feline AIDS was not zoonotic i.e., it cannot be transmitted to humans but the damage had been done and many cats were killed unnecessarily.

It is true that the viruses causing human and feline AIDS belong to the same group of viruses but they are distantly related. There is no way a cat can give a human the disease even by biting and scratching them.

Covid

When this disease was first reported in the news media, I can well remember the effect it had on nervous cat owners in China. Those in high rise apartment blocks began throwing their cats out of the windows to their deaths on the paving below.

Cats thrown from tower blocks in China during the early days of the Covid pandemic. Image in public domain.

I reported on this on Feb 1st 2020: SHOCK HORROR- CORONAVIRUS, CHINA: Panicked Chinese Are Throwing Their Cats Out of Tower Block Windows.

It was dire. And then as the pandemic progressed thousands of cat owners abandoned their pets in locked apartments for them to die of starvation. It was utterly mad.

At the time there was no media reports of the possibility of contracting the disease from companion animals so these cat killings were entirely out of panic. 

As it transpired it was found that Covid is zoonotic and can infect people. And people can get the disease from pets but even at the end of the pandemic there have been exceptionally few examples.

Can I get Aids from my cat?

I don't think this is a very serious question today because people normally know that you can't get Aids from your cat because they are a different species of virus and the feline Aids virus is not transmittable to people i.e. it is not a zoonotic. Having got that out of the way, in the early part of the 1990s, as I understand it, there was a scare concerning feline Aids which led to the needless killing of a large number of healthy household cats.

Photo: Richmond SPCA

At that time the disease was new to people and some believed that if a cat got feline Aids (feline immunodeficiency virus-FIV) they could transmit it to their human caregiver. Apparently when newspapers in California reported that some domestic cats had been identified as carrying the Aids virus many cat owners panicked and had their cat euthanised. They feared that if their cat scratched them they'd get it. Veterinarians and cat sanctuaries were flooded with requests to have their cats destroyed or to have them rehomed. In every case the fears were unfounded. Panic: a symptom of human nature.

FIV-positive cats can live good and enjoyable lives

Nowadays people are far more knowledgeable about FIV. The next important point to make about this disease is that cats can live very good and enjoyable lives even if they have it. There are some websites dedicated to information on this subject. The disease is only contagious to other cats and it is difficult to transmit. With few exceptions, the disease is transmitted through a cat bite as the virus is present in the cat's saliva. On rare occasions offspring can get the virus from their mother.

You should never euthanise a cat infected with FIV unless the disease has made them very ill and it would be humane to euthanise the cat for chronic health issues. Your veterinarian will advise on that.

Cats infected with FIV normally appear to be completely okay. FIV cats are very adoptable and as mentioned there are websites on this subject. Some very kind people do adopt them and give them pleasant lives.

Cats with the virus are called FIV-positive. They might show no signs of illness and it may be years before clinical signs are evident if at all.

FIV-positive cats can share their lives with dog safety. As I said, this is not a zoonotic disease and therefore it can't be transmitted between different species and therefore it can't be transmitted to a dog from a cat.

FIV-positive cats can develop secondary infections and it is these infections that might be life-threatening. They can also develop various forms of cancer, kidney failure, blood diseases which may threaten their lives.