Influx of kittens prompts plea to neuter cats
An animal rescue charity is urging people to neuter their cats because of a rise in the number of kittens needing rehoming.
Suffolk Animal Rescue, which is based in Stowmarket, said they had been inundated with kittens and have had to make an urgent appeal for donations to fund food and medication.
Staff say the most concerning aspects are the risk of an immunodeficiency virus and the number of pregnant kittens they are dealing with.
Emma Floyd, a kennel maid for the charity, said: "People that let their female cats out too soon are running at a high risk of their cat becoming pregnant."
The Suffolk based charity specialises in taking in feral cats and "taming them".
They said it was becoming "extremely concerning" after they started to see kittens having their own babies.
Ms Floyd, who lives in Pettistree, said: "I think last year we were around the 50-kitten mark.
"It takes a long time getting through the kittens and mums. It is not just the care, but it is the medication."
Due to the influx of kittens arriving at the rehoming centre, the charity said they had been working to maximise space.
"It is thinking about if we have older kittens who can move on to the older area, it frees up our spaces," Ms Floyd added.
She raised concerns about domestic cats not being neutered and also contracting Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV).
According to the RSPCA, FIV is a viral infection that results in cats having a weakened immune system.
Ms Floyd said people could be "running a high risk" of their cat mating with an FIV-positive tom if they are not neutered.
"There are so many schemes set up for people to get help with neutering their cat," she added.
An online wishlist was set up by the rescue centre after it "went through supplies at a very fast pace".
Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
'We've been rescuing and rehoming cats for 100 years'
Animal shelter that was set to close could stay open
'We're rehoming more dogs due to cost of living'
Suffolk Animal Rescue
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
38 minutes ago
- Medscape
Mavacamten Showing Real-World Success in Treating oHCM
MANCHESTER — Mavacamten (Camzyos, Bristol Myers Squibb) continues to show promising results in patients with symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM), a consultant cardiologist said at the recent British Cardiovascular Society Annual Conference 2025. William Jenkins, a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, said that real world outcomes mirror those from clinical trials, including EXPLORER and VALOR-HCM. High Rates of Symptom Improvement Notably, data from three UK centres showed that about 70%-80% of patients experienced symptomatic improvement with mavacamten treatment. In addition, 90% saw a 30mmHg drop in the left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) gradient – considered a significant reduction in obstruction. William Jenkins Although patients initially required 'very intense echocardiographic surveillance', Jenkins said 'it gets much easier' after the first few months of treatment. 'I think our reliance upon echocardiography will probably reduce as we get more experience with this,' he told Medscape News UK . A First-in-Class Therapy Mavacamten, a cardiac myosin inhibitor, is the first drug of its kind. It works by normalising contractility, reducing dynamic LVOT obstruction, and improving cardiac filling pressures in people with HCM. 'HCM is something that develops over decades,' Jenkins said. 'You can develop symptoms early, but you can have those symptoms for a really long time before you go on to develop other things like abnormal heart rhythms, heart failure, or dying suddenly.' He added that although oHCM is considered rare, many patients could benefit from treatment. Managing HCM still falls within general cardiology in some centres, Jenkins noted, raising concerns that patients may not be reviewed as frequently as needed. 'People live with it for years and years — if not decades — before they develop any of the end stage features of HCM,' Jenkins said. 'They can become very adapted to their symptoms.' Patient Advocacy and Experience Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy affects around 1 in 500 people in the UK and US, with about two thirds of cases involving obstruction. Katharine McIntosh, head of research and policy at Cardiomyopathy UK, told Medscape News UK that mavacamten had been a 'cause for excitement' among patients. 'It's the first big cardiomyopathy-specific drug.' McIntosh expressed frustration at the slow rollout of the drug, which was recommended for NHS use in England and Wales in 2023 and in Scotland in 2024. 'It's at the point now where one would have thought that everyone who should be on it would be getting onto it. But that's just not been the case,' she said. A recent Cardiomyopathy UK survey found that patients who accessed mavacamten were 'very positive' about its effects. Respondents described it as 'life changing' and felt like they had been given their lives back, McIntosh said. Challenges Facing Widespread Use One barrier is that mavacamten must be prescribed and monitored by specialists experienced in treating cardiomyopathies – resources not available at all centres. Prescribing guidance states that patients require echocardiography before and at regular intervals after starting treatment. Genetic testing for Cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2C19 (CYP2C19) is also needed to guide dosing. Long-Term Outlook Jenkins said that three key issues must be considered before prescribing mavacamten: Close early monitoring is needed, as the drug can cause left ventricular systolic dysfunction. CYP2C19-related drug interactions require pharmacy input. Counselling is essential due to potential foetal toxicity risks. 'Most people tolerate this [drug] very well', he said. After the initial 12-week period, follow-up can be reduced to every 3-6 months. 'This is an indefinite medication for a lot of people' Jenkins said. However, with an estimated annual cost of almost £14,000 per patient, he stressed the need for careful initial use. 'Right now, the indication is for symptomatic, severe LVOT obstruction,' he said. However, 'there's no reason in the long-term why this shouldn't become first-line'. Whether mavacamten offers benefit for oHCM patients without obstruction remains unclear. Jenkins has acted as a consultant to BMS and AstraZeneca. McIntosh had no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Boil in the bag' funerals could be introduced in UK after European roll-out in Ireland
"Boil in a bag" funerals - already used widely in America - could soon be made available across the UK. This environmentally friendly, yet controversial, way to say your final goodbyes to a loved one has already been rolled out in Ireland back in 2023 and could come to the UK next. This unusual method, officially known as water cremation or alkaline hydrolysis, is currently effectively banned in the UK, but could well get the legal go-ahead following the independent Law Commission's new consultation into funerary methods. READ MORE: Dad, 32, who flew to Turkey for family holiday dies hours after being escorted off plane READ MORE: Met Office verdict on UK heatwave this WEEK as temperatures to climb to 29C Already available across 30 US states, as well as Canada and South Africa, the first European water cremation facility, or resomation, opened its doors in early 2023 in Navan, Co Meath, Ireland. Traditional burials can lead to embalming fluid seeping into the grave soil, while each gas-powered fire cremation releases around 245kg of CO2 into the atmosphere, according to UK-based cemetery and crematorium development the CDS Group. By comparison, figures from Resomation Ltd, the founding body for alkaline hydrolysis, show just 28kg of CO2 is released into the atmosphere per water cremation. Unlike conventional cremations, these eco-friendly farewells, which take between three to four hours, also don't release harmful mercury emissions into the atmosphere. But you might be wondering how the process actually works. Well, first the body is loaded into the alkaline hydrolysis machine, which calculates the amount of water and potassium hydroxide required. The machine locks and an alkaline solution fills the pressurised tank, which is gently heated to 152C. The remains get broken into their chemical components - amino acids, peptides, sugars and salt - leaving behind a liquid that is then cooled in another tank until sterile and free from any remaining tissue or DNA. Around 330 gallons of brown-coloured liquid will be washed down the drain, while the softened bones are ground to powder in a reducer, and presented in an urn to the grieving family. In 2017, Wired journalist Hayley Campbell described the process in colourful detail after seeing a resomator in action at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Hayley wrote: "Over the course of up to four hours, the strong alkaline base causes everything but the skeleton to break down to the original components that built it: sugar, salt, peptides and amino acids; DNA unzips into its nucleobases, cytosine, guanine, adenine, thymine. "The body becomes fertiliser and soap, a sterile watery liquid that looks like weak tea. The liquid shoots through a pipe into a holding tank in the opposite corner of the room, where it will cool down, be brought down to an acceptable pH for the water treatment plant, and be released down the drain." Noting that "it's not actually that terrible", Hayley revealed: "The human body, liquefied, smells like steamed clams." Highlighting why this process is still a bit of a taboo in an interview with The Telegraph, Dr Lian Lundy, a wastewater specialist from Middlesex University, explained: "Some people view it as basically mixing up my loved one with poo in the sewer and they don't like that. "But there's a lot that goes into the sewer that we don't really think about – waste from mortuaries and hospitals and all sorts of things that we don't know about – so from that perspective, it's not really any different."
Medscape
6 hours ago
- Medscape
Prevalence of Autoimmune Diseases Rose in UK Pregnancies
Over the past two decades, the prevalence of autoimmune diseases among pregnant women in the UK has significantly increased, with psoriasis being the most common condition. The likelihood of diagnosis varied across sociodemographic factors, including age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. METHODOLOGY: Researchers conducted a UK population-based retrospective cohort study using routinely collected primary care data from Clinical Practice Research Datalink Gold and Aurum pregnancy registers. This study included 5,165,960 pregnancies in 2,831,472 women aged 15-49 years from 2000 to 2021, including 185,208 pregnancies in 100,655 women with a coded diagnosis of autoimmune disease. Researchers evaluated the prevalence trend, calculated annually for both overall and each of 17 autoimmune diseases, during pregnancy via diagnostic codes and analysed their associations with sociodemographic factors. TAKEAWAY: The overall prevalence of autoimmune diseases during pregnancy increased from 3.5% in 2000 to 4.7% in 2021; psoriasis was the most prevalent condition, followed by inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis between 2000 and 2010 and type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease in 2010-2021. The prevalence of most of the autoimmune diseases significantly increased between 2000 and 2021, with the steepest rise observed in Hashimoto's thyroiditis (+6.22%), coeliac disease (+6.20%), and alopecia areata (+4.75%). Women living in less deprived areas had higher odds of autoimmune diseases during pregnancy than those living in more deprived areas (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.10; 95% CI, 1.07-1.14), and Black women had significantly lower odds than White women (aOR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.45-0.51). Compared with women aged 15-20 years, those aged 21-30 years (aOR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.14-1.20), 31-40 years (aOR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.45-1.55), and 41-50 years (aOR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.68-1.82) had increased odds of being diagnosed with autoimmune disease before pregnancy. IN PRACTICE: "This study gives a clear estimate of the burden of autoimmune diseases in pregnancy in the UK and the possible association with various demographic factors, and will help the process of improving maternity care for women with these health conditions," the authors wrote. SOURCE: This study was led by Megha Singh, PhD, Department of Applied Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England. It was published online on June 02, 2025, in The Lancet Rheumatology . LIMITATIONS: This study did not include some rare autoimmune diseases like dermatomyositis. Although the use of primary care data reduced entry-level coding biases, improvements in recording practices over time might affect data quality and completeness, potentially affecting observed trends. Additionally, this study may have underestimated the prevalence of autoimmune diseases since most cases are diagnosed and managed in secondary care. DISCLOSURES: This study was supported by the Strategic Priority Fund "Tackling multimorbidity at scale" programme. One author initially worked at the University of Birmingham and later joined AstraZeneca and currently holds an honorary contract with the University of Birmingham.
