infections, and poor hygienic situations, may promote transmission of the infection between cats.
Clinical symptoms
Mycoplasma felis is typically associated with URTD but sometimes it may be associated with lower respiratory tract infections.
Common clinical signs include clear or colored discharge from the eyes or nose, coughing, sneezing, conjunctivitis, chemosis, lethargy, and anorexia. Lower respiratory tract infections can result in pneumonia with fever, cough, tachypnoea, and lethargy.
Diagnosis
Culture of mycoplasmas can be used to demonstrate infection, but it takes time for culture and rapid transport of samples to the laboratory is required. Demonstration of organisms via real-time PCR is increasingly being used to circumvent the difficulties with culture,
Treatment
Antimicrobial therapy is commonly used to treat mycoplasma respiratory infections. Doxycycline is a good first line agent because it is well tolerated by cats and relatively narrow in spectrum. The recommended dose is 5 mg/kg, PO, q12h or 10 mg/kg, PO, q24 (Lappin et al., 2017). Oxytetracycline or chlortetracycline ophthalmic ointment can be used q6h in addition to topical treatment.
Note
Bioguard’s Qmini PCR can detect, M. felis DNA in 90 minutes at your clinics using ocular/ nasopharyngeal swab as samples.
