Season 8 Episode 11: Brix, the ICU, FIP, and a Spooky Cat Fungus

A kitten can look “a little off” on Sunday and be fighting for his life by Monday morning, and that reality changes how you read the science headlines. We breakdown Brix’s terrifying ICU stay, what we learned from the veterinary team, and why we’re still watching his recovery like a hawk.

First, we dig into a genuinely spooky health threat: Sporothrix brasiliensis, a cat-associated fungal disease that can spread to humans and other animals. We talk through what symptoms can look like, why experts are concerned about the fungus moving north, and how transmission differs from the usual “inhaled spores” narrative. We also cover the practical risk points for shelters, vet clinics, and rescue groups, including how long it can survive on surfaces and what disinfectants are effective when cleaning is done right.

Then we shift to FIP, feline infectious peritonitis, the diagnosis Bricks most likely has, even though his case is atypical. We explain how common feline coronavirus is, why cats don’t “catch FIP” directly from each other, and why wet FIP and dry FIP can look so different. Most importantly, we talk about the modern turning point: antiviral treatment like GS-441524, what monitoring looks like during recovery, and why starting early can move survival odds dramatically.

If you care about cat health, emerging zoonotic disease, and the newest breakthroughs in veterinary medicine, hit play, share this with a cat parent who needs it, and subscribe, rate, and review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome Back And Meet The Hosts

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello, science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zakowski.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

And I'm Chris Zikowski.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

We're the pet parents of Bunsen, Beaker, Bernoulli, and Ginger.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

The science animals on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right spot.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

So put on your safety glasses.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And hold on to your tail.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

This is the Science Podcast. Hi, welcome

Bricks’ ICU Scare And Recovery

SPEAKER_01 0:33

back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode 11 of season eight. So we we took a bit of a break from the podcast because Bricks got so sick. That was pretty scary a week ago.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

It was a very terrifying time for us, but thankfully Bricks is on the mend. Now he's certainly not out of the woods yet, but every day he continues to get stronger, and we're just very grateful for the medical team, the vet techs and the vets that helped him while he was in emergency and gave him the best care possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah, I'm so thankful he pulled through, and the community across our social media really reached out to us and had our little cat in their thoughts, which was really sweet. And we were at our max. There's no way we could even think about doing the podcast because Bricks was in the ICU, but he's home. And this is the focal point of the two science things we're doing this week. So in Science News, we're going to be talking about an emerging cat-associated fungal disease. This is something that folks sent me through social media saying, Hey, have you heard about this? And I was like, Oh my God. It's unlikely because we're so far north of where it's moving to, but I thought we would talk about it. And then in pet science, we're gonna break down FIP. And that is something that Bricks most likely had. It's the diagnosis that the pet vets went with, but he Bricks was atypical, so he didn't have all of the symptoms. But he did turn a corner when he started the antiviral treatment. All right, ready to get to it, Chris?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I'm ready to get to it. You betcha.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

All right, there's no time like Science Time.

The Zoonotic Fungus Spreading North

SPEAKER_01 2:17

This week in Science News, let's talk about a spooky fungal disease that is creeping north. This disease is called what?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Jason, when you say let's talk about something, it's actually somewhat terrifying. It's like a big emerging cat-associated fungal disease. And after reading through the information about it in the article, I was left with my mouth hanging open and wanting to, I don't know, cr curl up in a blanket and read a light read book.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah. So this is the disease that primarily affects cats, but it's zoonotic, so it can spread to humans and dogs and other mammals in your house or in the wild. It's caused by the fungus Sporothrix Braziliansis. It's a bit of a mouthful, but it's from Brazil. And it's named because there was an outbreak of it in Brazil in the 1990s. Down in South America, it's infected thousands of cats and made thousands of people sick. It's even infected a couple hundred dogs. And while everybody's worried, is it's spreading north. It's spread beyond Brazil into Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. And as we'll go through, there is a lot of concern that it will spread worldwide.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Now, the good news is that the fungus has not officially been detected in the United States and Canada. And unfortunately, experts believe that it's only a matter of time before it does arrive. And areas that are considered to be especially vulnerable include large cities with extensive straight cat populations, as well as rural regions with many free roaming barn cats.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah. That is one of the big issues of having a feral cat population or folks letting cats roam is when they're outside your house, there's such a much greater likelihood of them interacting with other animals that are also roaming, and that spreads disease so much faster.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

So the disease, what does it look like if you were thinking maybe you've seen something like it? Their early signs include skin ulcers, raised skin nodules, and swollen lymph nodes. And that's the early sign. And then the advanced disease means that the infection spreads into their lungs and can spread throughout their entire body, and it causes a severe systemic illness. And without treatment, nearly 100% fatality rate. And even with treatment, the mortality rate remains relatively high.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

When it infects humans, you do get those painful skin ulcers. And wherever your cat or dog or mammal has scratched or bit you, you get really gross skin lesions. And in very severe cases, the infection may spread deeper into the body. And if you are one with a weakened immune system, it could be life-threatening. Way more deadly to the cats than to people, but it can make people sick. And the wild thing is that symptoms may not occur for months or even years. It has a very long incubation that allows it to hide. So the case study in this kind of PSA that we got the information from, uh, family moved from Brazil to the United Kingdom. And then three years later, two family members within that group developed the disease. And one of their cats was found to be infected. So it took three years for the symptoms to show up. And the veterinarian who was treating the cat was also infected. It's almost like the last of us with that spreading fungus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Now, this fungus is different, though. Most fungi infect people by inhaling spores or the spores entering cuts or puncture wounds. But this one is unusual because it spreads as living yeast cells, not just those spores. And that makes the direct animal-to-animal transmission much easier.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

If you're a person and you get infected, you've inhaled the spores, or the spores entered you from cuts or puncture wounds. And then obviously, if you're a cat, you're going to get it from grooming another cat or fighting another cat. And then, of course, when you're fighting another cat, you may bite or scratch. So all of those behaviors allow those yeast cells to transfer directly between the animal and a human or the animal and the animal.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Now, I'm just going to let everybody know that Bricks is awesome at taking his medication that he's currently on, but giving medication to an infected cat can increase the chance of scratches and bites, like if the cat is uncooperative at taking their medication. So that's why vets and owners who are treating infected cats are particularly at risk.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

And you of course are worried about getting scratched or bit by an infected cat, but it's just such a different pathogen to bacteria that you would just sanitize the area and you'd probably be good. Those E cells are going to get into you. If you sneeze, they discovered that infected cats can sneeze cells into the environment. And of course, people probably could too. And then it's floating around. Now, the other gross thing about this, Chris, is how long it survives outside the body.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

It can survive up to 10 weeks in the lab on stainless steel surfaces. And other yeast, Candida albicans, is about 48 hours, and Candida Oris is about one month. So 10 weeks is a long time to live on a surface. And so that raises concerns about the vet clinics and animal shelters and rescue organizations. But the good news is the fungus is easily killed with bleach and ethanol or alcohol disinfectants. So proper cleaning are highly effective ways, but you have to be very diligent about that cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

So the experts are a bit concerned because there's a whole bunch of things going for this fungus that make it particularly good at spreading. It's zoonotic, so it can infect animals and humans. And when cats are infected, they become pretty contagious, like a bite or scratch on another cat or person can spread it. And it can survive, as you mentioned, Chris, for weeks on surfaces. Long incubation periods mean that it may be years before symptoms develop. So that means folks who are rescuing a cat from South America, where it or even the northern part of South America, so inching into Central America, you may move from that area, or you may want to adopt a cat from that area, and health certificates that verify the cat as disease-free may be true, but it may be holding on to this fungal infection that will show up years later. And then there's no real way to test for it. That's the big thing. There's no diagnostic tests that exist specifically for this type of fungus.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Exactly. So I guess we should have done a bit of a spoiler alert that this scientific breakdown is not a warm and fuzzy story.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

No, but it was something that as Bricks was very sick and he was having respiratory distress, people were talking to us about it, about this emerging fungal infection. Now, if it does take so long to incubate, Bricks is still a baby, some of his symptoms fit the cost. So I get why people were telling us about it. All right, keep your ears to the news, folks, right? This you m you might see some stories in the next couple years of it moving into Central America and then North America, like down by Mexico. All right, that's science news.

FIP Explained And Why It’s Different

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Weekend pet science, we're gonna talk about FIP. That's feline infectious periotinitis. This hits close to home, Chris, because that's what they think BRICS BRICS has or had.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

And for decades, FIP was one of the most feared diagnoses in vet medicine. Cat owners often had little hope. Until very recently, a diagnosis of FIP was almost always fatal. However, thanks to groundbreaking antiviral medications, this outlook has changed dramatically. Now, we're not going to downplay FIP. It is still a very serious disease that requires prompt treatment. It's no longer considered an automatic death sentence.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

For folks that follow us on social media, you saw the drama play out two Sundays ago. Bricks went into the ICU. We took him to the hospital because we thought he was off. And they, out of abundance of caution, they kept him overnight. There was some worrying cloudiness on his x-ray and his blood platelets were high, but he was fine. He was okay. And then he just crashed that night and Monday morning. He was fighting for his life and it was brutal. They gave him gave him some steroids, which helped a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

And inflammation for sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah. And then they did a chest puncture to get some of the fluid out to see what it was. And it everything was inconclusive. And then we thought, you know what? Let's just start the antivirals for FIP just in case. And I had not heard about FIP until Bricks got sick, and hundreds of people were reaching out to us. Pet parents were telling us about FIP. And then some veterinary technicians and vet doctors themselves reached out and said, you know what? We've had cases like BRICS where it turned out it was FIP or they responded to FIP treatment with an atypical diagnosis. So something to think about. Maybe get BRICS on the FIP meds as soon as possible. So that's like I guess that's what happened with BRICS. But what is FIP, Chris?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

It's caused by a mutation of the feline coronavirus. So F Cov. And that's not the coronavirus that was responsible for COVID-19. But feline coronavirus is a completely different virus that infects only cats. But the surprising thing is that the I call it cat coronavirus is extremely common. So approximately 25 to 40 percent of cats carry the feline coronavirus. And in shelters, breeding facilities, and multi-cat households, infection rates could may exceed 80 to 90 percent. But fortunately, most infected cats never become seriously ill. Many show no symptoms at all, while others experience only mild diarrhea. But this is where the problem occurs. It's when the virus mutates inside of an individual cat. And that's where you see the problems. So instead of remaining in the intestinal tract, the mutated virus gains the ability to survive inside white blood cells called macrophages. And these immune cells then carry the virus throughout the whole body, where it triggers an overwhelming inflammatory response, which affects the blood vessels and multiple organs. Now, that is what the feline infectious periotinitis is. It's that inflammatory disease. Now, importantly, cats do not spread FIP directly to one another. They spread the ordinary feline coronavirus. And so, like lots of them don't even know they have it, or the owners don't know that their cat is a carrier of the coronavirus. But the dangerous part is when the mutation occurs independently inside the affected cat.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Veterinarians first recognized FIP as a disease in the 1960s, and then they identified it as a type of coronavirus in the 1970s. And for decades after, there was no progress in treatment. Vets would know what it was, FIP. It was this disease, but they had no way to stop it. And we talked to a couple of the vets watching over BRICS, and they were like, Yeah, if this is FIP, we've got drugs now. But in the past, the best we could do was give the cat steroids and hope for the best. And most of them didn't make it, which was awful to hear because before these antiviral drugs, there was no cure. Vets just provided comfort to the cat until it had to be euthanized or it died. The disease was considered the stat is crazy. The disease was considered pretty much 100% fatal once the clinical signs developed. Awful. Bricks did does fall into the, I guess, the range of cats that are most at risk.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

So which cats are most at risk? FIP can occur at any age. Most commonly, they see it in kittens between four months and two years old. They see it in cats living in multi-cat households, shelter and rescue cats, and BRICS definitely we rescued him. Interestingly, purebred cats have a slightly increased risk, cats under significant stress or cats with weakened or immature immune systems. But only a small percentage of cats infected with feline coronavirus ever develop FIP.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah. So Bricks fit the box for a bunch of those. He's a kitty. He was living in a multi-cat household, right? When he was little, he was a rescue cat. He was in a foster home with what, I don't know, 15 other cats, like his litter, plus the cats that were already there, like lots of other cats. Ginger came to visit. Yeah. Maybe he was under stress from that. He's a baby, so his immature his immune system might be not fully developed. So like he he does fit the checkbox for almost all of those.

Wet Vs Dry FIP And Diagnosis

SPEAKER_02 16:45

There's two forms. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah. Oh. So Chris, there's a couple different forms of FIP. The one that most likely BRICS has is wet FIP. What's going on with it?

SPEAKER_02 16:58

That's the classic form of the disease. And the inflammation damages the blood vessels, which allows protein-rich fluid to leak into the body cavities. So this is a bit perplexing if we were going to compare it to BRICS because he didn't show some of the markers of wet FIP. So common signs include a distended abdomen due to fluid accumulation, and there is fluid around the lungs causing labored breathing, which were both things that BRICS had. However, he didn't have a persistent fever and no significant weight loss, but he did have a loss of appetite and he was lethargic.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, those last two things is what we saw on that Sunday.

unknown 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

My spider senses were tingling. And the wet form often progresses rapidly if there is no treatment.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

And we definitely saw from it had an x-ray where there was a little bit of cloudiness on his lungs to him being full filled with fluid within a day. That was very rapid. The other type of FIP is the dry FIP, and it actually produces little or no fluid. Instead, the inflammatory lesions are called granulomas, and they develop throughout the body and affect organs like the liver, kidneys, intestines, the lymph nodes, the eyes, the brain, the spinal cord. And the symptoms do vary depending on which organs are involved in the dry fib and may include a chronic fever, weight loss, poor appetite, eye inflammation, vision changes. The cat might have difficulty walking or tremors or seizures, or you might witness behavioral changes. Now, the dry fib is generally more difficult to diagnose because its symptoms overlap with many other diseases. And when we were looking at Bricks's case, they kept bringing up all these differentials and saying, okay, it could be this, it could be this. And it was because it wasn't a clear cut, like there were still things that were on his list of differentials that, hey, maybe we need to look at treating with steroids because maybe it's asthma. And yeah, it was a harrowing time, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

So diagnosing FIP is extremely challenging because there's not like one single thing that diagnoses it. The vets have to gather evidence from a combination of things like medical history. And we did know that in Bricks's letter, one of his litter mates was testapositive for FIP, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Yeah. And I was wondering about that because if it's so difficult to diagnose, how did they know? And I had all these questions for our veterinarian, and we're not epidemiologists or we're not vets, but like we did have some questions on how did they know it was FIP for sure. And sometimes you just don't know. But it's just gathering all that evidence and ruling out things that it isn't, and then going with the best evidence to say maybe this is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

They did blood work on bricks, his platelets were low. Also, the fluid that was in his body, they tested that. And that's you can test the fluid for two things elevated globulins, and globulins are proteins involved in the immune response. And the other thing you could test is albumin, which is uh blood protein made by the liver, and that will be low. So you want a low albumin to globulin ratio, and a ratio of approximately 0.6 raises suspicion for FIP. But his was over one. So that was another problem. He did not have that ratio. His imaging though showed, oh, I think it was Tuesday, they showed his whole body was full of fluid. It was brutal. And you can test PCR test it, which is extremely expensive. And by the time you get results, your cat may not be around. And you can also biopsy the tissue if you have dry FIP, like for those the organs that are affected. And as you said, the diagnosis for FIP is like putting a puzzle together, and you can never put all of the puzzle pieces in because somebody who did the puzzle before you stole a bunch of the pieces. So you gotta guess at what you have there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Yeah, his fluid wasn't straw yellow, it looked like clear water.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

And typical FIP fluid is straw yellow. And yeah, it was just interesting for him that all of the he didn't check all of the boxes for the FIP diagnosis.

Antiviral Treatment And Monitoring At Home

SPEAKER_01 21:47

So the treatment that is that Brooks is on for 41 days is an antiviral drug called GS441524. That's on his bottle. And these medications directly stop the virus from. From replicating no previous treatment goes for 84 days, but our vet said that there's no difference between 41 and 84, so he's on the 41 day treatment. It's it's in this 42. Sorry, yeah. It's in a little syringe, and you you probably should have your cat have some checkups, and we're taking bricks later this week or early next week for a checkup where I think it'd be smart for us to probably have his blood and another x-ray done, honestly. And that's what they suggest. Obviously, you monitor and watch your cat like a hawk so those other symptoms don't develop.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

So we're definitely watching his appetite, and he is a hungry hippo. Because that was the first one of the first signs, uh aside from being lethargic. And he is very food motivated, he loves it. But one good thing that we found from the vet is he loves the things that we call goo tubes.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Goo sticks, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

The goo sticks, because he had to have, or we chose to have a echo to see if the hydrostratic pressure was because his heart was having trouble. Because two things can be true at once. You can have a cat with cardiac cardiovascular issues and fit going on at the same time, but his heart is very fine.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

His heart was perfect.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

It's working just fine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

So things Bricks is not out of the woods. He's on this antiviral treatment for a while, and the stats are good. Between 80 to 95% of cats survive and go into long-term remission. But especially if you get treatment as soon as possible, that's for wet FIP. The dry FIP that can cause neurological problems is a little bit less. That's probably closer to the 80% than the 95%. So we're we've got just got our fingers crossed for our little cat. We just love him so much. It was super emotional time, and every day we pick him up and tell him we love him and we kiss him a thousand times. He's just a good little guy.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

But you know what? What was once considered one of the deadliest diseases in cats has become one of the greatest success stories in modern vet meds. But you gotta recognize it early. Treatment needs to begin early, promptly, and closely monitoring the cat throughout recovery is also very important.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

We do have a large social media account, and what I'm hoping is Bricks's story might save some other cats out there that may not be presenting with the same kind of symptoms. And a lot of vets follow us in vet techs and cat parents. So I I Bricks survived and I'm glad so glad he did, but I think his story will help others, which I'm happy about. Alright, that's Pet Science

Thanks, Patreon Shoutouts, And Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_01 24:51

for this week. That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the Science podcast. And a shout out to all the top dogs. That's the top tier of our Patreon community, The Pop Pack. You can sign up in our show notes. Alright, Chris, let's hear those names that are part of the top dogs.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Amelia Fetty, Re Oda, Carol Hano, Jennifer Challenge, Linnea Janet, Karen Cronister, Vicky Oteiro, Christy Walker, Sarah Bram, Wendy, Diane, Mason and Lou, Helen Chin, Elizabeth Bourgeois, Marianne McNally, Katherine Jordan, Shelly Smith, Laura Stephenson, Tracy Leinbaugh, Ann Uchida, Heather Burback, Kelly, Tracy Halbert, Ben Rather, Debbie Anderson, Sandy Brimer, Mary Rader, Bianca Hyde, Andrew Lynn, Brenda Clark, Brianne Haas, Peggy McKeel, Holly Birch, Kathy Zirker, Susan Wagner, and Liz Button.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Take in the code with the ups and downs.