Please note that this is an extremely rare disease even in Brazil, where it came from. Asked my vet, and two cousins who also are vets, and all of them knew of the disease from scientific literature and government health bulletins, but only one of them had treated two actual cases, when he lived in northeastern region: two strays.

Brasil must have something like between 40 and 50 million cats (including strays). An infectious disease that killed thousands (what the article means? 1000, 2000? 10000?) while not ignorable, it is not exactly highly prevalent.

It is not that rare, the epidemic is just focused on the south region right now.

Porto Alegre metropolitan area is having a huge outbreak. My girlfriend is a vet and has been dealing with new cases multiple times a week.

Many of our friends also got it (it is very hard to not get scratched when handling with cats in pain).

It is a really really shitty, painful and hard to treat disease, requiring multiple months of treatment. It is very painful but usually not letal for humans and cats that are in the earlier stages and get treatment.

However it is absolutely lethal for populations of wild and stray cats, as it is very infectious and 100% lethal unassisted.

There’s also not enough data to say the number of human cases has been growing YOY because compulsory notification in Brazil only started in 2025.