Sparkle Anderson was just three weeks old when she was diagnosed with meningitis

Apr 18, 2014 11:06 GMT  ·  By

A three-year-old girl from Winsham Somerset almost died from meningitis after contracting a dangerous bug from a pet cat.

Sparkle Anderson was just three weeks old when she contracted the infection from the family's ginger tomcat Chesney. It is thought the cat licked the girl's bottle and she fell ill because of bacteria in the cat's saliva.

The Mirror tells us that the baby was rushed to hospital after her mother Chelsea-Ann Dodd noticed she was constantly crying and had high temperature. Doctors at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton performed some emergency tests and diagnosed Sparkle with meningitis and explained that they believed the girl caught the life-threatening infection from the pet.

When she was brought to the hospital, doctors said she was just hours from death, but luckily after a month in hospital, Sparkle made a full recovery. The girl's mother, who works as an events promotions assistant, says she feared the worst when doctors told her the diagnosis.

“It seemed such an unlikely cause. The doctors said she was only the 39th person in the world known to have picked up that particular strain of meningitis. It was very frightening,” Mrs. Dodd said. “They thought the bug was transferred through Chesney’s saliva. I’d been careful not to leave them alone together, but Chesney must have licked Sparkle’s milk bottle while my back was turned.”

As it turned out, Sparkle had contracted a dangerous and pretty rare viral strain of the illness called pasteurella multocida. This bacterium is common in animals, including cats and dogs, and can be passed to humans through saliva, bites, or scratches.

Given that her daughter recovered from the terrible illness, Chelsea-Ann decided not to put down Chesney, but instead gave the cat to her mother Susan Dodd.

Despite the unpleasant incident, the girl and the cat have now become best friends, and doctors say it's perfectly safe for them to play together.

“Chesney still lives with my mum and there's no need to worry about them being in contact any more. In fact they follow each other around all the time when we visit,” the girl's mother explains.

Meningitis is an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, and can be life-threatening. According to charity Meningitis Now, 10 per cent of bacterial meningitis cases are fatal. This terrible disease kills more UK children under the age of five than any other infectious disease.