Corona cats kill 300,000 cats on the island of Cyprus. Does it extend to Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey?

Weather of Arabia - The island of Cyprus is suffering from a surge of the feline Corona virus, "which has killed 300,000 cats since January," while animal advocates, including Dinos Iomamitis, are urging the government to take action to stop the spread of the epidemic, which may extend to Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey, according to experts.

The six-month-old "Baby" cat was admitted to a veterinary clinic in the capital, Nicosia, after suffering from feline infectious peritonitis.

Veterinarian Costis Larco says that this virus results from “a mutation of the intestinal coronavirus that 90% of cats suffer from,” and it is “highly contagious” among these animals, but it is not transmitted to anyone who deals with an infected cat.

Feline infectious peritonitis has multiple symptoms, including fever, swelling in the abdomen, weakness, and sometimes aggressiveness.

At least 300,000 cats died from the disease in six months, according to Dinos Iomamitis, president of Cats Paws and vice president of Cyprus Voice for Animals.

For the past 25 years, Iomamitis has been feeding about 60 stray cats in a cemetery in Nicosia. "Their groups are good, but we are concerned that when one cat is injured, the other cats are injured," says the 70-year-old retiree, standing next to cats jumping between the graves.

Feline infectious peritonitis affects a large number of major cities in Cyprus, a member state of the European Union, and this epidemic will also affect neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey, but due to the lack of research, “nothing allows us to confirm this,” says Dimitris Epaminondas, a deputy President of the Cypriot Veterinary Association.

Officially, only 107 cases have been reported in the southern part of the Greek Cypriot island, according to the veterinary authority of the Ministry of Agriculture. However, the number does not reflect the reality, as a large number of those concerned with the sector confirm the difficulty of diagnosing the disease, in addition to the shortage of the necessary resources.