Humane Society Silicon Valley has been hit hard this year by an alarming number of kittens infected with ringworm. And while the fungus infection isn’t fatal, cats that can’t be transferred to the humane society’s treatment facilities in Milpitas from other shelters are at risk of being euthanized.

“When other shelters are overcrowded, they have to put down the kittens to stop the spread of disease,” said Laura Birdsall, the humane society’s animal care manager. “You have a bunch of kittens in a shelter, that can be transmitted to people. That’s a big problem.”

Ringworm tends to infect kittens more than adult cats, according to humane society spokeswoman Finnegan Dowling. It is highly contagious and can be spread by both animals and humans that had direct contact with an infected animal, or indirectly through dishes, toys and bedding. Typically, ringworm leads to hair loss and sometimes lesions, but it is highly treatable.

The shelter started noticing the higher number of cats with ringworm around April, when “kitten season” was in full swing, according to Dowling. She estimated that about 50 to 60 cats at the shelter are being treated for ringworm.

There is no clear reason for the recent uptick of infected kittens, but the number of cats being treated at the shelter well surpasses last year’s total, Birdsall said.

“Our physical capacity [for treating infected cats] is about 25 animals,” Birdsall said. “At no point last year were we treating more than that; this year at one point we had over 45 at one time.”

Demand for quarantine space has reached the point where staff is now seeking foster homes willing to undertake the rigorous process of treating the kittens with regular medicated baths, as well as normal caretaking tasks, Dowling said. The humane society normally has one room dedicated to housing cats infected with ringworm; this year it had to convert a room usually used for healthy cats to accommodate the fungus-affected felines.

“We’re dealing with a much higher volume of kittens than we have in the past,” Dowling said. “When other shelters found we were capable of taking them and treating them, then they started asking us” to take other kittens in.

“It’s the first time we’ve specifically asked for ringworm foster homes,” she added. About 25 to 30 volunteers currently don special booties, gowns and other protective gear so they can give the kittens weekly dips in a lime/sulfur bathing solution. The shelter recently put out word for more help, and as a result more volunteers have been coming in to bathe and socialize with the infected kittens. Birdsall called them “lifesavers” but said finding enough foster homes to ease the squeeze of housing has been more difficult.

“There’s not a lot of people, especially when they have kittens that you can let run all over your house and that you can cuddle with. Most people want to take those,” Birdsall said.

People interested in fostering the kittens with ringworm will be asked to attend a two-hour class on how to treat them with the special baths and oral medications, as well as a basic class if they’re first-timers to fostering. Foster parents can expect to house them for a minimum of six weeks–the standard time it takes to eliminate ringworm–though it can be longer. They will be given gowns, gloves, towels, toys, medicine and anything else needed to care for the kittens.

“The only real requirement is a heart big enough to help, a spare bathroom, and to be able to come in once a week to test and culture them,” Dowling said.

Birdsall called the volunteers at the shelter and those fostering them a “unique group of people.”

“The people that are interested in helping out are really interested in helping where help is most needed,” Birdsall said. “They want to do what is most needed at the time; it’s a very altruistic task, for sure.”

While undertaking the task of caring for the kittens can be a tall order, Dowling said it is an incredible way to save a life.

“If you do foster one of these guys, you can go into your bathroom and know that you saved it,” Dowling said. “If you can do this for six weeks, it’s a very concrete, tangible way to look at something and say, ‘I saved this animal’.”

For more information about fostering shelter animals, visit hssv.org.