Hello everybody,

I'm new to this board. My name is Marta, I'm writing from Italy so please excuse my English!

I'm a member of a board similar to this one in Italy (it's all written in Italian, but here it is: www.micimiao.net/forum) and I'm looking for help for a cat called Attila, whose owner has been a member of the same board for years. Attila is 3 y.o. and he was diagnosed a rare disease called "orbital aspergillosis". It's a fungus that hides behing the eyes and quickly spreads to invade eyes, nose and brain. Attila lost his left eye and will soon lose his other eye as well, but this is not going to be enough to save his life, unless we find a newer, more effective therapy than the one his vets prescribed... which seemed to be the best available for the moment. The therapy consists of oral posaconazole (the drug is called Noxafil and costs about 800 Euros in Europe... we raised funds thanks to donations from all over Europe to buy it!) but it's not working very well.

The reason I'm writing, is that we read on this website (http://www.jaaha.org/cgi/content/abstract/42/4/302) that the only other case of orbital aspergillosis in a cat was in the USA, a persian cat was successfully cured in your Country and we are trying to get in touch with the owners of this cat and/or with the vets who cured him/her. We have no idea where they live and exactly when their cat got this disease, but considering the drug "posaconazole" is a quite recent one, we hope they can still be reached. Maybe they read this board, maybe someone knows them or can help us find them.

We would like to get in touch to compare our experience with theirs, to understand if their cat went thorough the same pain that Attila is enduring and knowing that he was saved, maybe we can find a little hope for our dear, lovely Attila. We really are desperate to find them and to get in touch with anyone who can give us any help or support in this situation, so if you can help us please feel free to get in touch at: attilathecat@libero.it

We have sent an email to the researchers who wrote that study, we hope they'lle get back to us, but any other kind of help is welcome.



If you don't know about this disease but would like to help, please forward this message to any pet rescue group you know about or to your veterinarian or to your friends, I know it's a shot in the dark but maybe if this message circulates we can find someone who can help. We don't want money, we just want to find a cure to this disease that can save Attila's life and other cats' lives in the future who might be affected with the same fungus.



Thanks for reading! Marta



ps: this is a link to a video where you can see Attila: http://picasaweb.google.it/valinattila/Attila/photo#5166504208966313282

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