A three-year-old girl almost died after her family's cat gave her a rare form of meningitis. Sparkle Anderson was left just hours from death after she contracted meningitis from Chesney, her mother's two-year-old pet. Thankfully, after a month in hospital, Sparkle made a full recovery and she is now inseparable from the animal. Sparkle Anderson, three, caught meningitis from her mother's pet cat, Chesney (pictured) Sparkle's mother Chelsea-Ann Dodd, 21, a promotions assistant from Winsham, Somerset, said: ‘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.
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Sparkle Anderson, now three, fell ill when she was just three weeks old
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Was diagnosed with meningitis and medics said she was hours from death
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Her illness has been traced to the family's pet cat, Chesney
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It is thought the cat licked Sparkle's bottle and she became ill because of bacteria in the cat's saliva
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But it is extremely rare for the bacteria to cause meningitis
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Last month a 19-year-old revealed she had caught TB from her kitten
Dodd said: ‘They thought that it was transferred through @placeholder's