Researchers, “cats could play role in bird flu transmission, mutation”
Dutch researchers at Rotterdam’s Erasmus Medical Center wrote in the journal Nature that greater precaution needs to be taken to prevent domestic cats from transmitting bird flu to humans.
The team also notes increasing reports of domestic cats dying of bird flu in Asia and Europe.
And the researchers highlight the possibility that cats could play a role in allowing the virus to change in such a way that the feared human pandemic could become a reality.
“Apart from the role that cats may play in H5N1 virus transmission to other species, they may be involved in helping the virus to adapt to efficient human-to-human transmission,” they say.
The team noted that its research from experimentally infected cats did not reveal important mutations in the virus but warned that “such mutations cannot be ruled out.”
The report was critical of the response of the World Health Organization to reports of deaths among cats from the H5N1 avian influenza strain.
The WHO said in February that there was ‘no present evidence that domestic cats play a role in the transmission cycle of H5N1 viruses.’
The article in Nature notes the deaths from the virus of domestic cats, wild members of the cat family and animals like tigers in Asian zoos, dating the first report to Bangkok in February 2004.
And it said the disease was now so well-known in parts of Indonesia that it had been given the onomatopoeic name of ‘aargh- plop’ in the local dialect.
The H5N1 virus appeared particularly severe in cats, it said. Experiments in the Netherlands showed all eight cats exposed to the virus by three different methods going on to develop the disease.
The team highlighted the fact that cats become infected with the virus through contact with domestic and wild birds and sometimes transmitted it to other cats.
It suggested precautions like keeping cats indoors, but noted that such measures could be impossible to implement in many parts of the world.
“We believe the time for increased surveillance and precaution is here,” the Dutch team said.
Scientists are still in the dark to what the bird flu’s final mutation will be so it’s best to follow established guidelines to try and limit the disease’s impact.
Sources used in story:
Health News