Carbon County Friends of Animals is shutting its doors to visitors for the next month because of a skin infection that was found on some of the cats.

Susie Yaich of CCFOA said Monday that the shelter, which currently cares for approximately 200 felines, will be closed through March 20 because of cases of ringworm.

Yaich said while shutting the doors to the public was a hard decision, it was the correct one. Staff hope to sterilize the building, as well as treat all cats who are identified as having ringworm.

Ringworm is a dermatophyte or fungus and is zoonotic, meaning it can spread from animal to animal and animal to human and human to human. It causes a scaly, round dry patch on the cat’s coat. Typically, areas affected by ringworm will lose the hair in that area.

Yaich said that it’s impossible to know how the ringworm came into the facility, whether it was brought in on a cat and wasn’t caught, but staff was alerted after some adopters found the cats to have ringworm.

The good thing, Yaich said, is that ringworm isn’t as worrisome as some viruses and other diseases and is very treatable.

The staff has put a special cleaning protocol in place to eradicate the ringworm from the facility and the felines and will not resume adoptions until everything is under control.

Cats will be scanned using a blacklight because ringworm glows fluorescent and those affected will be treated with medicine as well as special topical ointment.

Staff will also wear protective coverings when in the building to prevent any ringworm spread within humans.

“It’s not like a virus that lives in the air,” Yaich said. “It actually can be taken care of in a two-week period, but I wanted to close for a month because I’m trying to prevent any other cats from picking it up.

“It’s going to be a lot of work,” she added, “But I wanted to give it enough time to make sure that it was completely eradicated.”

Yaich stressed that there is no reason for the public to panic, but felt being up front about why the shelter needed to temporarily close was best.

Shelter staff will be at CCFOA daily to care for the animals and continue the sterilization of the building.