Flu Worries in EU Extend to Pet Cats

It seems that it is always the pets that come out on the short-end when panic sets in about various diseases that may or may not be communicable between animals and people.  Those diseases are known as zoonotic and although 38 of these diseases have been discovered in the last quarter-century, pandemics occurring due to these illnesses are not an issue – with the notable exception of H5N1, or bird flu.  It is also important to remember that most of these diseases do NOT come from family pets, as zoonotic illness refers to any animal.

Unfortunately, a cat was found dead in Germany and it died of avian influenza, or bird flu.  Cat owners are being advised to keep their cats indoors (good advice regardless of the bird flu) and to not panic (also good advice).  But cat owners are beginning to abandon their pets.  “Nationwide, several hundred cats have been left with us. People are scared their cats have bird flu,” a spokesman for the German Animal Welfare Society said.

This is not the first time cats have been infected with H5N1, but it is the first European case.  Large cats and some domesticated cats in Asia have also been infected.  Cats can be infected through experimental human vaccines or more likely, through the ingestion of infected birds.  As cats hunt birds, and usually eat them (or some percentage of the bird), that is the most likely source of avian influenza in a cat.  Cat to cat transmission appears to be possible but cat to human is not.

Abandoning pets, especially for a disease that has not appeared in human to human transmission, is not an effective way to handle a potential pandemic, nor is it fair to the pets who share our lives.  Keeping cats, and other pets, indoors, and feeding them appropriately cooked and prepared foods, can avoid many diseases, not just H5N1 avian influenza.

Signs of Panic as Bird Flu Takes Wing

EU Experts Call for Cats to be Kept in Doors in Bird-Flu Hit Areas

WHO View On H5N1 Avian Influenza In Domestic Cats

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