Feline Cowpox (Orthopoxvirus Infection)

Feline cowpox is a viral skin disease of hunting cats, and the name is a historical hangover — the virus was first studied in cattle, but the true reservoir is wild rodents. A cat almost always catches it while hunting, when an infected vole or mouse bites back and drives the virus into the skin. That is why the classic first sign is a single sore on the head, neck or a front paw, the parts of a cat that meet a cornered rodent first.

After that primary sore, the virus travels through the bloodstream and, over the following week or two, erupts as dozens of small round crusted nodules across the body. To an owner this second wave can look alarming, but in an otherwise healthy cat the illness is usually self-limiting: the immune system clears it over about a month to six weeks, and the scabs drop off to leave skin that heals well.

The important caveats are two. First, steroids must be avoided — they blunt the immune response and can allow a routine case to progress to severe, even fatal, pneumonia, so a correct diagnosis matters before any anti-inflammatory is given. Second, cowpox is a genuine zoonosis: it can pass from an infected cat to people, generally causing a localised sore but occasionally something worse in someone with a weakened immune system. Handle the lesions with gloves, wash your hands, and tell your vet if a vulnerable person shares the home.

Diagnosis is confirmed by swabbing or biopsying a lesion, and most cats recover fully with nothing more than good nursing and treatment of any secondary infection. The best protection is simply a cat that hunts less.