Woman says that she contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome by stroking a stray cat

Gemma Birch believes that she contracted the very rare Guillain-Barré syndrome because she stroked a stray cat in Albufeira, Portugal in 2014.

She said that she was left paralysed from the hips down after she contracted the bacterial infection from a stray cat. She liked the cat during her holiday at a resort and enjoyed stroking her/him.

The Mirror newspaper says that the cat carried the potentially deadly infection which left her wheelchair bound for months. Gemma began vomiting on the final day of her holiday. She became faint on the flight home.

She was taken to Southport Hospital where tests revealed that her stool contained the bacteria campylobacter which can be found in raw chicken. In fact campylobacter is often found in undercooked food, especially poultry.

She was discharged from hospital but then had to return because numbness developed in her legs. Doctors then diagnosed Guillain-Barré syndrome. She spent four months in rehab and it took 14 months to get back to normal.

Gemma loves cats but no longer strokes stray cats. The big question is, is she right in believing that this stray cat passed to her this very rare disease? Is the Mirror newspaper right to report with certainty that she caught the disease from a stray cat?

In this article I say that the bacteria which causes the disease is found in raw chicken. I’ll speculate and say that perhaps she ate some undercooked chicken on her holiday. Might that be a more plausible cause? Perhaps not. The report says that the cat caught the infection from feeding in rubbish bins (trash bins). But how was it transmitted?

Could campylobacter be picked up from stroking the cat and then it caused the autoimmune disease? Campylobacter can be found in the gut and faeces (poo) of animals. If it found its way onto the cat’s coat via faeces then stroking the cat could transmit the bacteria to Gemma?

The NHS website tells us that the syndrome is caused by a problem with the immune system. The immune system of people suffering from Guillain-Barré syndrome goes wrong and it attacks the nervous system rather than the bacteria (autoimmune disorder).

They say that it can be triggered by an infection such as food poisoning, flu or cytomegalovirus. It can also be triggered by vaccination (but this is very rare), or surgery, and medical procedures can sometimes cause it.

I’m not sure how doctors decided that she got the disease from the cat. Perhaps the newspaper is wrong as it seems more likely she got it from food poisoning. However, it is an interesting story and I think it is the first time that I have come across this zoonotic disease causing illness in a person from stroking a cat. It must be exceedingly rare.