Bird Flu Is Now Killing Cats at a 90% Fatality Rate – Experts Warn It Could Jump to Humans

Scitech Daily ^ | May 20, 2025 | University of Maryland

[Red Badger]

The first major global review of bird flu in cats reveals an emerging threat of a potential human pandemic.

Spring is here, birds are on the move, and a new threat is spreading alongside them: bird flu (H5N1). This virus is changing fast and could be on the path to becoming a human pandemic. Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Public Health have recently published a major study in Open Forum Infectious Diseases highlighting a surprising new concern. They found that cats are catching bird flu more often, and they’re calling for urgent monitoring to help stop the virus before it can spread between people.

“The virus has evolved, and the way that it jumps between species – from birds to cats, and now between cows and cats, cats and humans – is very concerning. As summer approaches, we are anticipating cases on farms and in the wild to rise again,” says lead and senior author Dr. Kristen Coleman, assistant professor in UMD School of Public Health’s Department of Global, Environmental and Occupational Health and affiliate professor in UMD’s Department of Veterinary Medicine.

“Bird flu is very deadly to cats, and we urgently need to figure out how widespread the virus is in cat populations to better assess spillover risk to humans,” she said. “We want to help protect both people and pets.”

Looking at data from 2004 to 2024, researchers uncovered 607 cases of bird flu in cats around the world, including 302 deaths. These cases spanned 18 countries and involved 12 different types of cats, from household pets to big cats like tigers. Despite the growing threat, cats are not routinely tested for bird flu. In most cases, testing only happens after the animal has died. Because of this limited surveillance, the real number of infections is likely much higher, according to lead researcher Dr. Kristen Coleman.

Increasing Transmission Pathways

Yet the ways cats are getting bird flu are multiplying. The study shows cats contract bird flu directly by eating infected birds or contaminated raw chicken feed, and indirectly through other mammals – for example, farm cats fed raw milk from infected cows, pet cats to other pet cats, tigers to other tigers.

Infected cats often suffer from acute encephalitis (brain swelling) and other severe symptoms, which are mistaken for rabies, according to the study. The most deadly strain of bird flu is highly infectious and makes up the majority of cases in domestic cats, with a current 90% case fatality rate.

In humans, bird flu is slightly less deadly, but still has killed around half of the 950 people infected with it globally. Between April 28, 2022 (when cumulative data on humans in the U.S. started being collected) and January 6, 2025, the United States has seen 66 confirmed cases in humans and one death.

Human Implications

Coleman and her team are particularly concerned about the potential for bird flu getting into animal shelters which could result in large outbreaks, potentially involving humans – similar or worse to what happened in New York City with a different strain of bird flu in 2016.

There are no reported cases of human-to-human transmission of bird flu, but researchers are concerned that as the virus spreads and evolves, it could become easily transmissible through the air.

“Our future research will involve studies to determine the prevalence of HPAI and other influenza viruses in high-risk cat populations such as dairy barn cats. Our research seeks to protect people and our vulnerable pet cats from the emerging threat of H5N1,” said Ian Gill Bemis, coauthor of the paper and doctoral student studying bird flu in cats.

Reference:

“Avian Influenza Virus Infections in Felines: A Systematic Review of Two Decades of Literature”

by Kristen K Coleman and Ian G Bemis, 7 May 2025, Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofaf261

Funding for this project was provided by the University of Maryland Baltimore, Institute for Clinical & Translational Research (ICTR) and the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) to KKC, as well as discretionary funding from the University of Maryland School of Public Health, Department of Global, Environmental, and Occupational Health to KKC.

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TOPICS: Agriculture; Food; Health/Medicine; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS:

[mewzilla]

SNORT.

From 2006, so about 20 freaking years ago...

Influenza A Virus (H5N1) Infection in Cats Causes Systemic Disease with Potential Novel Routes of Virus Spread within and between Hosts

Everything old is new again.

Nice try, Deep State.

[Red Badger]

Prevention is simple: Don’t eat your cat...................

[gunnut]

Time to line up for your Fauci clot shot and stock up on PPE.

[mewzilla]

Don’t inoculate it, either...

Which is how the people conducting the study had to do it, wasn’t it...

[billorites]

Meow

[BBQToadRibs2]

Fear mongering isn’t just for breakfast anymore.

[mewzilla]

Not just you, but your pets, too.

Screw that.

BTW, I see in the UK tabs this morning that hysteria is being ginned up over West Nile virus.

West Nile...

I love the smell of desperation in the morning...

[FlingWingFlyer]

Better start stocking up on toilet paper and paper towels unless you still have a bunch left over from the Kung Flu Experiment.

[PGalt]

Social distance from my kitties or should I put masks on them?

[xxqqzz]

Which lab was this enhanced in?

[Colt1851Navy]

What good comes out of Maryland except roads and rivers?

[enumerated]

I’m scared. I feel like we need Dr. Fauci to tell us what to do.

[Petrosius]

I guess I will have to cancel my reservations tonight at the local Chinese restaurant.

[fruser1]

Just 42 years late.

[Red Badger]

🤨..................😁

[Red Badger]

🤨..................😁

[montag813]

"In the United States, domestic cats are estimated to kill between 1.3 and 4 billion birds each year. This makes them a significant contributor to bird mortality, second only to habitat loss."

Looks like they had it coming.

[FlyingEagle]

A soaking hot soapy bath daily for your cat, Cats Birdy Flu Vaccine and masking your cat 24/7, while maintaining social distancing of 12 feet away from the cat, will prevent this deadly Pandemic from spreading.

Also make your cat work from home for a couple of years, no catting around.

🐈‍⬛

[Skwor]

What experts really mean is they may intentionally force it to jump species (to serve their ideological purposes)