Cyprus becoming "island of dead cats" after 300,000 die from feline coronaviruses

There are fears

a type

of

feline coronaviruses

may kill cat populations across the world if it continues to spread.

Feline infectious

peritonitis

(FIP)

, which is not

transmissible

to humans,

is estimated to

have killed thousands of cats on the

Mediterranean

island of Cyprus in recent months.So far just 107 cases of

FIP have been officially recorded

by the agriculture ministry in the southern part of the island, but experts think

(

the true number is much higher owing to the country’s huge

stray

cat

population

)

.

Head

of Cat Protection and Welfare Society (PAWS) Cyprus, and

Vice-president

of Cyprus Voice for Animals, Dinos Ayiomamitis,

said

: 'We have lost 300,000 cats since January from FIP.'

Cyprus is known by some as

the "Island of cats" because it features the earliest known evidence of the

domestication

of the animal 9,500 years ago.

生詞/組：

feline 貓;貓科動物;貓科動物的;貓似的

coronaviruses 冠狀病毒;病毒;冠病毒

peritonitis 腹膜炎

transmissible 傳播性;可傳染的;可轉(zhuǎn)移;

Mediterranean 地中海的;地中海；

stray cat 流浪貓

vice-president 副總統(tǒng);副總裁，副總

domestication馴化；馴養(yǎng)

譯文：

30萬人死于貓冠狀病毒后，塞浦路斯成為“死貓之島”

有人擔(dān)心，如果一種貓冠狀病毒繼續(xù)傳播，可能會殺死世界各地的貓群。據(jù)估計，近幾個月來，地中海塞浦路斯島上數(shù)千只貓死于不可傳染給人類的貓傳染性腹膜炎（FIP）。到目前為止，該島南部農(nóng)業(yè)部僅正式記錄了107例FIP病例，但專家認(rèn)為，由于該國流浪貓數(shù)量龐大，真實數(shù)字要高得多。塞浦路斯貓保護(hù)和福利協(xié)會（PAWS）負(fù)責(zé)人、塞浦路斯動物之聲副主席Dinos Ayiomamitis說：“自1月份以來，我們已經(jīng)失去了30萬只來自FIP的貓?！比致匪贡灰恍┤朔Q為“貓島”，因為它是9500年前馴化這種動物的最早證據(jù)。 來自地鐵報（Metro）