Science / Medicine : Death Blamed on Cat Virus

An outbreak of pneumonia and other illness among a dozen poker players, resulting in one death, is being blamed on a cat that gave birth near their card table. Researchers believe that the cat carried a variety of bacteria that causes Q fever, and it shed large amounts of the germ when she gave birth.

On Feb. 14, 1987, the cat gave birth to three kittens in the poker room during a game. The cat’s owner became ill on March 5. Over the following two weeks, 11 others got sick. One of the players died but the rest recovered after taking antibiotics.

Doctors, who reported the incident in the New England Journal of Medicine, later found that the cat carried Coxiella burnetii, the microbe that causes Q fever. The bacteria is found in high concentrations in the amniotic fluid and placentas of infected animals.