For First Time, Flu Spreads From Birds

[RedEarth]

Mar 6, 3:06 PM (ET)

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Three cats have tested positive for the deadly strain of bird flu in Austria's first reported case of the disease spreading to an animal other than a bird, state authorities said Monday.

The sick cats were among 170 living at an animal shelter where the disease was detected in chickens last month, authorities said.

The World Health Organization called bird flu a greater global challenge than any previous infectious disease, costing global agriculture more than $10 billion and affecting the livelihoods of 300 million farmers.

.........

"We truly feel that this present threat and any other threat like it is likely to stretch our global systems to the point of collapse," said Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic alert and response.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060306/D8G69CPO0.html

[MrModerate]

1. While this is scary, I have to ask . . .

Why would you keep chickens at an animal shelter? Was their owner mean to them? Given what we know about the conditions chickens are usually kept in . . .

[RufusEarl]

2. Good point!

I keep hearing about cat's and the bird flu, don't cat's eat birds? Wouldn't this be the more likely way to spread this flu?

Hell i'm still not convinced that the bird flu is really a problem, my be Bu$h trying to figure a way to quarantine the country.

[Mojorabbit]

6. I guess we won't know if it had it before it got there or after

VIENNA, March 6 (Reuters) - A cat in an animal sanctuary in southern Austria has tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus but was yet to show any symptoms of the disease, Austria's health minister said on Monday.

The cat was among 170 cats kept in cages next to birds including a swan that died of the disease and chicken and ducks found to have the virus after they were culled last month, Health Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat told a news conference.

"All the cats have been brought to a quarantine station," Rauch-Kallat said. "Those 170 cats are now being closely monitored. We are expecting important observations as to whether they will become ill, or are just carriers of the virus."

Animals carrying H5N1 without showing any signs of ill health could make it harder to detect and contain bird flu. The longer the virus remains in a mammal, the greater too the risk of it mutating into a more dangerous form.
snip
Saliva samples from 40 of the cats were tested for H5N1 after the outbreak at the "Noah's Ark" sanctuary in the city of Graz. Initial tests were positive for three of them, but later tests confirmed the virus only in one.

The remaining cats will now be tested as well as all the dogs at the sanctuary.

Johann Thalhammer, a professor at Vienna's veterinary university who will monitor the cats, said it was not clear how the infected cat had caught the virus. It was also not known when it had become infected and if it had been carrying the virus before it was brought to the sanctuary.

[SaveElmer]

3. Well this is not the first time actually...

Tigers in a Zoo in Thailand, along with a number of Civet cats in Vietnam had previously been infected. Also of course 174 humans have been infected as well.

[phantom power]

4. The question that leaps to my mind is...

Are cats a known mixing species for human strains of disease? For instance, pigs are known breeding vessels for human-contagious strains of flu. What about cats?

Fun fact: canine parvo arose as a species-jump from feline distemper.

[Virginia Dare]

5. This is troubling...

because while we do not live in close proximity with birds the way they do in Asia, we do live in close proximity with cats.

[TrogL]

7. and cats can spread diease even when not meaning to

I've got plenty of cat scratches from play-fights and litter boxes are a known methodology for disease vectors.

[Pharaoh]

8. yes and any cat that sees a

sick bird flopping around is going to pounce on it....

then go home a purr up next to his human......

[Skittles]

16. or BRING the bird to his human

wanting you to be proud of him :o

[depakid]

15. Toxoplasmosis

Nasty stuff for a developing fetus or for the immunocompromised.

The cat scratch disease is Bartonella henselae, a little Gram negative deal that causes swollen glands. mostly in kids.

Dunno about the potential for viral reassortment in cats, but they will excrete a lot of H5N1 virus into their little box.

A couple of interesting points about cats in this January 2006 pathology abstract:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16400021&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

[aquart]

9. Don't let your cats go out.

[mom cat]

10. Absolutely! It has always been best to keep them indoors, especially

if you live in an area with traffic and any feline diseases.

[Lorien]

11. Always good advice. And if you have one that makes demands

that you feel like indulging, try this (works for my Puck):





With all the dangers to pets outdoors, there's no reason to allow them to roam freely unless you live on a farm with rodent problems.

[kestrel91316]

12. If we get H5N1 avian flu in the US here is how we proceed:

1) Keep cats 100% indoors!!!!!!!!!
2) Do not allow your cats anywhere near any incompletely cooked poultry.
3) Don't bring new sick cats into the home.

There now, that's not so difficult, is it?

No need for mass abandonments or hysterical mass euthanasias. But you just know the American public will panic anyway........sigh.

[Jersey Ginny]

13. Good advice, I've got one very LOUD cat though

He wants to go outside at 4 am every frigging morning. I have tried to ignore him for even up to 30 minutes, but he outlasts me. I may have to suffer sleepless nights for a few days/weeks to keep him/my family safe. Your advice is good.

[kestrel91316]

14. It could be a matter of public health and there could be laws

requiring that cats be kept in...........they could go so far as destroying any cats found at large. If the disease threat is bad enough, expect draconian measures.

Tough times call for tough measures. They had to seriously crack down to control rabies, and guess what? IT WORKED.

[NoSunWithoutShadow]

18. Germany has already started with your #1

Germany has also had a cat die of bird flu:

"First, a stray cat died of bird flu on the German island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. Before long German authorities decreed that all cats had to be kept indoors throughout areas where infected wild birds had been found, including Singen. They also said dogs should stay on leashes when outside."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/international/europe/05flu.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[HuffleClaw]

17. meee-OW!

geeze, i'm glad our kitty stays indoors. now cats, then what, dogs? small children?

[RedEarth]

19. Updated article ........ adapting to mamals?= higher risk to humans

GENEVA, March 7 (Reuters) - Reports that a cat contracted bird flu and has not fallen ill could mean the virus is adapting to mammals and poses a potentially higher risk to humans, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Tuesday.

Michael Perdue, a scientist with the WHO's global influenza programme, said more studies were needed on infections in cats, including how they shed the virus. But Perdue said there was no current evidence that cats were hidden carriers of a virus which can wipe out poultry flocks in the space of 48 hours and occasionally infects people.

Austria said on Monday that a cat in an animal sanctuary in the southern city of Graz had tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus but had yet to show any symptoms of the disease. However, the virus can take up to a week to strike and perhaps the cat in Austria could still develop clinical signs, according to Perdue.

"We have to follow-up with laboratory studies to see if it (the virus) changed genetically and is not causing clinical signs," Perdue told Reuters. "If it is true, it would imply the virus has changed significantly," he said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07562908.htm

[cyberpj]

21. but had yet to show any symptoms of the disease... what if it doesn't?

wouldn't it be interesting if it didn't affect the cat?!

[Mojorabbit]

20. cats and dogs?

babelfished from Russian:

In Yemen the cases of the mass loss of the poultry are fixed

CAIRO, 7 March - RIA of news, Igor Kuznetsov. In two provinces of Yemen the cases of the mass loss of poultry are fixed.

As reports to Tuesday yemenskoye Internet-publication "Saxva-no", veterinary service obtains information about the loss of domestic hens in the province Of ab'yan and AD-DALIA in the south of the country.

Furthermore, are individual cases of the loss of cats and the dogs, that ate dead birds, said to publication the chief of the veterinary division of the province Of ab'yan Of noshad of odes.

At present veterinary brigades explain the reasons for the loss of birds.

Publication notes that in these provinces the poultry yards according to tradition are built along the roads, which can increase the danger in epidemic.

Yemen borders on Saudi Arabia and Oman.

http://www.rian.ru/world/asia/20060307/43991171.html

[Javaman]

22. This to me means that migratory birds now have it...

if a house cat and a caged tiger at a zoo are both testing positive for it, it means that the general bird population now is carrying it. It is an odd and interesting development that cats are now carrying it.

Not having had time to read the full article, does it say that any cats have died?

to me this is now a cause to be concerned but yet not worried.

If it spreads rapidly among domesticated cats, then it would be a cause to worry.

So far the bird flu has only be contracted by humans who deal directly with fowl.

However, this new development is one that needs to be watched and tracked.