Avian influenza ( Bird flu ) found in Austrian cats
A spokeswoman for the regional government’s Minister of Agriculture and Health, said on Monday that the H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected in cats in the southern Austrian region of Styria.
Authorities said that three cats, among 170 at an animal shelter, were found infected with the H5N1 bird flu. This is the same location where the virus was detected in chickens last month.
Health Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat told reporters in Vienna, that all the cats from the affected shelter have been moved to a location where they will remain under observation and the shelter has been closed.
“We have decided to put all the cats in quarantine,” Rauch-Kallat said. “Here they will be observed by veterinarians and experts in the coming days and weeks.”
UPDATE:03/06/2006
Austrian health authorities have confirmed that three cats in a southern Austrian animal shelter at one point were carriers of the H5N1 bird flu virus but two have since fought off the deadly strain.
Oskar Wawschinek, spokesman for the Austrian Health and Food Safety Organisation (AGES), told AFP that mouth swabs taken from the felines on February 22 tested positive for H5N1.
Subsequent testing showed however, that two of the cats no longer carried the virus.
“Nothing remained, nothing developed, they did not become ill” he said, explaining the cats had fought off the virus as humans can fight off a cold virus to avoid becoming sick.
Mr Wawschinek said that the third cat infected with the H5N1 virus was still under observation and was undergoing tests to confirm its presence.
The felines were being kept in the Noah’s Ark animal shelter in Graz, the site of the European Union’s first poultry infection which had been discovered in chickens a week earlier.