Like every cat owner, especially the cat owner with a large number of cat mouths, will shudder when talking about "cat ringworm". Don’t panic. As long as the measures are done properly, it is not a problem to solve the problem of "ringtinea tits". During this time, you really need to spend a certain amount of time and patience. If you strictly follow the following six steps, the "ringtinea" will completely disappear.
Step 1: Isolate & Detect your cat
Normally, the outbreak of "ringtinea" starts from one or several cats in your cathouse, and then is transmitted to other cats one after another. Kittens have the weakest autoimmunity and are therefore the most susceptible, so the first thing that cats are infected by ringworm is the first cats that are breastfeeding or just weaned. The symptoms shown are also different.
Once you find signs of ringworm, then take action immediately. If it is really ringworm, the longer you wait, the more troublesome the solution process will be. Therefore, you must not be lucky when you first find out the signs.
First measures:
●Isolation: Immediately quarantine symptomatic cats and asymptomatic cats, and divide them into symptomatic groups and asymptomatic groups.
●Symptomed groups: It should be assumed that all symptomatic cats have ringworm. How to determine? You only need to test and diagnose cats with the most severe symptoms, without having to test all cats in this group.
●Asymptomatic group: Every asymptomatic cat should be tested for ringworm to detect whether there are cats that have not yet developed the disease. In addition, if you have other pets such as dogs, rabbits, and rats at home, you should also test them as they may also suffer from ringworm.
●After the test results are released: Immediately transfer cats with positive test results for cats in the asymptomatic group (i.e., there is ringworm) to the symptomatic group. These cats whose ringworm tests positive may or may not occur. You have two groups now: one is a cat who tests positive for ringworm (with ringworm), and the other is a cat who tests negative for ringworm (without ringworm).
● If there are pregnant female cats in any of these groups, then these pregnant female cats need to be divided into two subgroups (that is, separate groups independent of the above two groups). This means that it may be divided into four isolated groups:
1. Cats with ringworm positive (ringtin)
2. Female cats with ringworm positive (ringtin)
3. Female cats with ringworm negative (ringtin)
4. Female cats with ringworm negative (ringtin)
Ideally, you need to treat all cats at the same time. However, if cats are too numerous, it would be a bit difficult and impractical to implement such a large amount of treatment.
The purpose of distinguishing cats with ringworm from cats without ringworm is to facilitate you to arrange the treatment order so that you can concentrate on prioritizing the treatment of cats with the worst condition.
One thing is very important: If a cat with a negative test result (without ringworm) lives in an environment with ringworm, then it is very likely that it will be positive (with ringworm) after testing it later.
Step 2: Oral medication (except for pregnant female cats)
This step is very important for eliminating ringworm.
All cats with negative (no ringworm) and positive (with ringworm) tests (except pregnant female cats) are given systemic oral medications to treat ringworm.
Note: Oral medications must also include cats who test negative (without ringworm) because they are exposed to an environment where ringworm is present and must prevent them from being infected.
The commonly used systemic oral drugs for treating ringworm are:
● Itraconazole
● Fluconazole
● Greyfulomycin
The medication should be given appropriate doses according to veterinary guidance until the symptoms of ringworm disappear (or usually about 8 weeks) and the ringworm test for two consecutive weeks (once a week) is negative.
All cats except pregnant female cats (regardless of age, regardless of whether they have symptoms) need to be treated with medication within the same period of time.
Pregnant female cats cannot take oral medication like this, because the medication can harm the fetus.
Because pregnant female cats cannot take oral medication, it is recommended to stop all breeding activities during the cathouse's systematic treatment of ringworm until the cathouse's ringworm is completely eliminated.
Step 3: Treatment of sterilization lotion
Oral medication is treated from the body, and external treatment of soaking and cleaning the cat with sterilization lotion is also important.
Shearing: For cats with short and medium-length hair, hair cuts are not required. Hair cuts are suitable for severely infected long-haired cats.
If your cat is large and it is impossible to clean all cats in a medicine bath within one day, then priority should be given to cleaning cats that are positive (ringtinea).
Medicinal bath cleaning treatment: Usually 1-2 times a week, you should choose a drug bath solution that can kill fungal spores. Mainly include:
● Ketoconazole lotion (main ingredient is ketoconazole + chlorhexidine), Stratford
● Miconazole lotion (main ingredient is miconazole + chlorhexidine), Malaseb
● Lithium sulfur mixture lotion (not commonly used)
In order to avoid the resistance of fungi to single drugs, ketoconazole lotion and miconazole lotion can be used to clean the alternate bath.
Pregnant female cats can be treated with a soaking bath, or they can be treated with topical creams. The only treatment method that cannot be used is oral drug treatment.
Step 4: Local administration treatment
In addition to oral medication and bath cleaning treatment, there is also a type of treatment that uses cream or spray for local administration, which is suitable for local administration to the affected area of cat ringworm visible to the naked eye.. Mainly include:
● Clotrimazole ointment
● Miconazole ointment
● Tonaphthalate ointment
● Pitfen spray (containing hormone components, long-term use will cause local cortical thickening)
If cats with ringworm symptoms appear in the cat group with negative (no ringworm), then transfer it to the positive (with ringworm) group as soon as possible.
Step 5: Cleaning and disinfecting the environment
Fungal spores can survive in the environment for up to one year, so it is very necessary to clean and disinfect the cathouse and home. If the environment still has fungal spores of ringworm that survive, then it is very likely that ringworm will start over even after your treatment is over.
Thorough cleaning and disinfection should consider all objects in the room, generally starting from the most contaminated cats with ringworm living.
Initial thorough environmental cleaning and disinfection:
● Discard all non-essential contaminated cat supplies, including weaving mats, brushes, cat clothes, cat toys, etc.
● Discard items that cannot be repeatedly cleaned and are not easy to disinfect.
● Scrub all cats’ contact surfaces with detergent.
● Use disinfectant (select a disinfectant that can kill fungal spores) or bleach to disinfect all surfaces (wipe) and spaces (spray). Make sure that the disinfectant or bleach stays on the surface for more than 10 minutes. Note: Clean before disinfection.
● Use a detergent to clean all cats (necessary) supplies.
● It is necessary to use a vacuum cleaner for daily vacuuming. In addition, after vacuuming every day, thoroughly clean and disinfect the inside and outside of the vacuum cleaner.
● If possible, install an exhaust fan on the window to drain the spores in the room out of the outdoors at any time.
● Use a disposable electrostatic cloth to wipe the dust everywhere.
● If the environment is relatively humid, you can use a dehumidifier to reduce humidity, which is also helpful for removing fungi.
Daily cleaning:
When you have completed the initial thorough environmental cleaning and disinfection, then use a vacuum cleaner and disposable anti-static cloth to dust all parts of the room every day to achieve the effect of physical spore removal. At the same time, disinfect the surface and space with disinfectant every day to achieve the effect of chemical spore removal.
Weekly cleaning:
Continue to disinfect daily until you feel that you have controlled the situation, and then gradually reduce the disinfection frequency until it decreases to disinfect once a week. Although daily disinfection is effective, it can cause adverse irritation to both people and cats, so if the pollution is not serious, disinfection once a week is acceptable.
UV irradiation disinfection:
If conditions permit, use ultraviolet lamps to disinfect the entire space for more than 30 minutes a day. Ozone produced by ultraviolet rays is also very effective in disinfecting the environment. But three points should be paid attention to:
● When ultraviolet rays disinfect a space, be sure to evacuate the cat and do not let the ultraviolet rays shine on the cat.
● Pay attention to ensuring the matching of the volume of the disinfection space and the irradiation intensity of the ultraviolet lamp, and ensure that the ozone concentration generated by the ultraviolet ray can achieve the disinfection effect. For details, please refer to the UV lamp usage guidance.
● The ultraviolet ray exposure time should not be too long.
The above environmental cleaning and disinfection work needs to continue until the cat's oral medication is over.
Step 6: Re-test ringworm, identify and eliminate carriers
As the symptoms of the cat group are positive (with ringworm), cats in this group should be re-tested once every two weeks (Note: Do it before cleaning the medicine bath). If a cat who has tested positive before (with ringworm) has been tested negative for two consecutive times (two weeks apart). Then it is considered as if he has recovered and the cat can be transferred to the negative (ringibacteria) group.
If a cat tests positive for ringworm (with ringworm), but it does not have any symptoms of ringworm, it means it is a carrier of ringworm. In this case, the best way is to get the cat out of your breeding program and send it to your pet family for feeding.
High-risk cat group:
Kitten: Because the kitten's immune system is not yet mature, it is more likely to be infected with ringworm. Even more so when weaned it shortly or just arrived at a new home and came into contact with a strange environment.
Pregnant female cats and newborn kittens: Pregnant female cats and newborn kittens have low immunity, so they are also prone to infection with ringworm.
Long-haired breed: Ringworm is considered a self-limiting disease for cats with short-haired breeds. Long-haired breeds like Persian cats have a specific susceptibility to ringworm due to long-haired hair, and are usually not self-limiting.
In cathouses, some cats are accidentally infected by cat ringworm and become asymptomatic carriers, and they continue to spread fungal spores to the environment, thereby infecting other cats, making cat ringworm a long-term headache for cathouses.