Again on the zoonoses topic, today's BBC news has an article about cats and "bird flu" (referencing this article in Nature).
The first report of domestic cats dying of the H5N1 virus emerged in Thailand in 2004 when 14 out of 15 cats in a household near Bangkok fell ill and died.
One had eaten a chicken carcass on a farm where there was an outbreak of the virus.
Post-mortem examinations on three of the cats confirmed the presence of H5N1.
Since then, there have been deaths among cats in Indonesia, Thailand and Iraq, where H5N1 appears to be prevalent among poultry.
And the disease is common among cats in Indonesia.
A dead cat was also found in Germany in March after the H5N1 virus was found in wild birds.
There have been reports of big cats dying from the deadly H5N1 virus - including 147 tigers who died in a Thai zoo after eating infected chicken.
(Continued below)
I can already hear the Hanks of the world pshaw'ing and saying, "who cares about 147 tigers and a few house cats?" The numbers alone aren't the point, however. The authors note in Nature:
Finally, we now know that H5N1 virus has the ability to infect an unprecedented range of hosts, including carnivores. In addition to felids, we can expect other domestic and wild carnivores, such as dogs, foxes, mustelids and seals, to be vulnerable to infection with H5N1 virus and to contribute to its epidemiology. Accordingly, we recommend increasing surveillance in areas where H5N1 virus is endemic, to include testing for H5N1 virus infections in felids and other carnivores showing unusual morbidity or mortality.
Right now, most of these animals aren't routinely being examined for evidence of H5N1 infection, and we don't know what their contribution--if any--will be to the epidemiology and spread of the virus. Big gaps like this in our information=Bad Thing.
The bottom line of the Nature article is this:
But given the potential contribution of these carnivore hosts to both virus transmission and its adaptation to mammals, we believe the time for increased surveillance and precaution is here.
For those of you who have been following the emerging disease and zoonoses series, it won't come as a surprise that I agree.
(Image from http://www.gonewacko.org/T2003/Cuties/CatCutie.jpg).
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Wow!
That's kind of scary, Tara. I own two kitties, one of which likes to partake of wild avian game. And I think it's only a matter of time before H5N1 show up in the U.S.
G.E.
That is scary. Especially since Americans are very close to their pets. Living in close quarters like the asians with their poultry. Not to mention it is spreading amongst species.
I am curious though do you believe the virus get here via migrating birds or through import/exporting of birds or now maybe cats? I ask because I read in another blog I am not sure which one or I would site it but it suggested that migrating birds are not the problem it is really the conditions of factory farming. Suggesting that the overcrowded unsanitary conditions the birds are in is leading to the spread of the disease. It also said that the spread is not following migratory bird paths. Have you seen evidence of this?
I discussed that topic here; there's evidence for both domestic birds (and the farming/exchange associated with them) and wild ones in the spread of the virus, and no one really seems to be sure which is playing the bigger role. I'm not concerned about cats as a major vector currently; they don't travel like wild birds and aren't generally shipped around like domestic ones, plus from the limited studies it seems that they're not good agents of transmission. The concern over cats, as I see it, is if Kitty is an indoor/outdoor cat, who may be chasing potentially infected birds one minute and cuddling with her human the next. Again, there's no evidence cats have transmitted the virus to humans so this scenario may be impossible (or at least, highly unlikely), but it's also an area that's not really been investigated yet.
"who cares about 147 tigers and a few house cats?"
Holy Grap! 147 tigers! That's a significant fraction of global population of that species. To answer the question not yet actually asked: I care!
Another interesting point in the Nature paper is the possibility of using cats as the proverbial "canaries in the coal mine." In other words, unusual cat die offs might give an early warning of a nearby infected bird population.