Feline Pancytopaenia Alert! Cat Food Recall & Importance of Early Warning

Published on: Sep 23, 2017

I’m afraid that today’s article is far from the usual positive read that we like to provide, but it is a story that deserves to be told. 

It is posted in memory of Tina, a sweet 2 year old cat, and is written with the generous permission of her devastated owners, in the hope that it may save another family having to endure the same sadness. 

Tina was a perfectly happy, healthy seeming cat until yesterday. In the morning she had seemed her normal self, but in the evening her owners found her bleeding from her nose and mouth. Immediately concerned they phoned our out of hours service, and after speaking to vet Polly, brought her to the surgery as an emergency. 

Polly was alarmed by her appearance; she was really poorly with a very high temperature and bleeding in her mouth and from her nose. There was no sign of any trauma like a road accident and she hadn’t been exposed to any known poisons like rat bait. Polly put her on an intravenous drip and ran some blood tests as well as giving antibiotics. 

In the morning, Polly handed over to me. Tina was still unwell and continuing to bleed. We made her comfortable with painkillers while we ran some more tests. I was worried as her white blood cell count was almost zero, and having looked at a blood smear, I couldn’t see any platelets – these are small cell fragments in the blood which are needed for blood clotting. 

I realised that this was an extremely unusual case, and after speaking to a vet at the University of Bristol, an uneasy thought at the back of my mind was confirmed. 

The signs that Tina was showing were typical of a spike of cases of Feline Pancytopaenia that have been seen recently. This disease causes severe damage to the bone marrow and is often fatal. There is no specific treatment that can be given. We do not yet know what the cause is, but the only common factor seems to be one of a number of dry cat diets made by Fold Hill’s food for AVA, Applaws and Sainsbury’s own brand. These diets are now being recalled. More details of the specific foods and batches can be found on their website. Tina was being fed one of these diets. 

I’m sad to say that like many of the cats who have been affected, despite supportive care, Tina deteriorated rapidly and I had to advise her owners to put her to sleep to prevent her suffering. We are now waiting for the results of a blood test on their other cat and hoping that she is not affected as well. 

Until we know what causes this awful disease, please make sure you are not feeding any of the listed diets, and call your vets if you have any worries. 

 

Information on the all of the foods being recalled can be found here: https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/alert/fsa-prin-36-2021  

feline pancytopaenia | cat bleeding | cat food recall | AVA dry cat food | Applaws dry cat food | Sainsbury’s dry cat food | Fold Hill’s | Shepton and Wells Vets