Posted on 04/05/2006 2:12:19 AM PDT by Mother Abigail
Bird flu: Don't put the cat among the chickens, warn Dutch team
5 April 2006
PARIS - A leading team of European virologists has appealed for health authorities to step up vigilance about household pets, saying cats and possibly dogs too are at risk from bird flu.
Albert Osterhaus and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, say that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other agencies have under-estimated the risk from cats in their campaign against avian influenza.
They point to several documented cases in Thailand, Indonesia and Germany in which domestic cats, farmyard cats and zoo felines have fallen sick or died after eating H5N1-infected chickens or wild birds, including the death of 147 tigers at a Thai zoo in 2004.
And they say that lab tests they have conducted prove that cats can catch the virus in several ways -- either from eating infected chicks, through contact with infected birds or through virus administered directly into the respiratory tract.
"The available evidence, albeit incomplete, suggests that cats are more than collateral damage in avian flu's deadly global spread and may play a greater role in the epidemiology of the virus than previously thought," the Dutch experts say in a commentary published on Thursday in Nature.
The Osterhaus team acknowledge that no-one knows if an infected cat can pass on H5N1 to humans. Just as unknown is whether the animal, by harbouring the virus, can help it to mutate into a pandemic form -- a pathogen that is not only lethal for humans but contagious, too.
But, they say, this risk cannot be ruled out, and precautions should thus be incorporated into the guidelines of the WHO, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
They recommend that steps be taken to prevent contact between cats and infected birds or their droppings; cats suspected of such contacts should be quarantined; and in temperate climates where there has been an outbreak of bird flu, cats should be kept indoors.
Surveillance should also be boosted for any sign of the bird flu virus among dogs, foxes, weasels, stoats and seals, as "we now know that H5N1 virus has the ability to infect an unprecedented range of hosts, including carnivores," the commentary adds.
Interesting commentary on another flu blog:
Bird Flu Spreading to New Animal Species 04-05-06 +
Warning on cats, surveillance urged for dogs, foxes, weasels, stoats and seals
Previous Thread:
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=42872
Original Thread:
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=42265
MA
The overall emphasis relating to pets and other animals not in anyway related to birds is a real wake up call, frankly I did not really consider much of the stated points prior to reviewing this information.
Thanks for posting this eye opening news.
Ping.
Very interesting show on PBS about H5N1 now. They are worried about the virus infecting somebody who is already infected by a normal flu virus. They say that some sort of natural recombination is possible, they are also comparing it to the 1918 epidemic.
This show is scaring the bejeesus out of me.
Sounds like it's only a matter of time before the worse occurs.
This is sounding more and more like the Y2K scare.
Interesting. A family in China showed up with the virus, it first appeared in one of the sons. Then his sister became infected. Both were moved to a contagious disease facility in Hanoi.
Both survived, but the son had massive lung damage. The daughter survived after intense illness, but with no long lasting effects. The grandfather was positive for exposure, but never showed any symptoms at all.
One of the nurses at the facility contracted it, no doubt through exposure to the son.
You are having the bejesus unnecessarily scared out of you.
While it bears watching, there is very little likelihood of the '12 Monkeys' scenario. The fear should be mitigated partly because the world is paying attention, and partly because the media can always be expected to hype anything, always.
Alot of these diseases that are really, really deadly are hard to become epidemics, because they kill the person so quick, it doesn't have a good chance to transmit. Ebola is like that. But from what I'm hearing, this stuff can kill you in 48 hours, even quicker than Ebola.
Ergo, any human outbreak is likely to be contained.
*IF* the stuff becomes humanogenic.
*IF* we don't figure out how to stop it first.
*IF* it remains as deadly as it is during the necessary mutation.
Seems to me like the media is looking for a little ad revenue.
Bird flu in British Swan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4881526.stm
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