Pets at risk as bird flu kills cat

[OpenMind]

Pets at risk as bird flu kills cat

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

(Filed: 01/03/2006)

Pet cats may have to be kept indoors once bird flu arrives in Britain, scientists have said after the death of a cat in Germany from the disease.

The case - the first of a mammal dying from bird flu in Europe - means that cats may be able to pass the H5N1 virus on to humans and that the disease may spread more easily than thought.

Even more worrying is the possibility that cats could help the virus to adapt so that it spreads more easily between mammal species, making a human pandemic more likely.

Prof David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, said that it was inevitable that bird flu would arrive in Britain.

He told the BBC: "We also have to anticipate that it will be here for five years-plus. We are talking about the possibility of this disease being endemic here in the UK."

The tom cat was found on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, where the highly pathogenic form of H5N1 bird flu was detected in mid-February among wild swans, it emerged yesterday.

Prof Thomas Mettenleiter, president of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Insel Reims, where the cat was examined, said: "It is very likely it contracted infection by feeding on sick birds or carcasses."

Dr Thijs Kuiken, the leading expert on the spread of bird flu to cats, said that keeping cats indoors should now be considered.

Dr Kuiken, a veterinary pathologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, said that a range of species had now been infected in the field with the virus, including cats, dogs, pigs, leopards and tigers as well as humans. "This virus has a very broad host range," he said.

Although cats have not appeared to play a significant role in outbreaks in the Far East, where birds play the dominant role in spreading the disease, they should be subject to control measures in affected areas, he said.

"It is good to use your common sense. If it is known that the virus is present in a given area, it is sensible to stop the cats getting into contact with infected birds. One possibility would be to keep the cats indoors."

Earlier this year, his team published the first evidence that H5N1 infection in cats "causes systemic disease with potential novel routes of virus spread within and between hosts", in The American Journal of Pathology.

This work showed the potential for influenza virus to spread not only from the respiratory tract but also from the digestive tract, greatly increasing the possible routes of mammalian transmission.

His call was echoed by Prof John Oxford of Queen Mary's School of Medicine, who warned that those who believe that killing all birds in a quarantine zone would be enough to contain H5N1 "are in for a bit of a nasty surprise".

"There are plenty of cats around farms and they have big circles in which they move," he added.

"This carries a lot of warning signals," said Prof Oxford. "We know you can infect mice and ferrets with this virus in the lab. This virus could move into a wider range of mammals than the cat. That would be a bit of a problem."

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that the discovery was "of interest" and that they would obtain further details before assessing its significance.

The spokesman added: "There is no need for cat owners to introduce precautionary measures at this stage."

Scientists are also concerned by the possibility that H5N1, by adapting so that it spreads among cats and other mammals, could develop the ability to spread among humans too.

Some researchers think this route - rather than bird flu combining with a human flu - is how the lethal 1918 flu pandemic evolved. "The more mammals the virus can infect, the greater the risk that it will change to one that can transmit easily among mammals," said Dr Kuiken.

Prof Joe Browlie, from the Royal Veterinary College, said: "It is important to keep a very close eye on the transmission of the disease to different species.

"The virus can currently jump only one step from one species to another (e.g. from a bird to a cat), and cannot be transmitted across various species. The danger lies if it mutates and can then be passed on to other species."

Yesterday Sweden became the ninth EU member state to be affected by the bird flu outbreak following the discovery of the H5 virus in two wild ducks.

Samples from the birds were sent to the EU laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey, for more tests to check whether, as experts expect, the case is another of the H5N1 strain.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

[OpenMind]

For God's sake, don't get feral, Cheshire.

[chonsigirl]

Oh, that is a sad thought Snooze.