Bird flu jumps to cats in Thailand

Three pet cats have died of bird flu and a white tiger has been infected by the virus at a zoo in Thailand, an official said today, raising concerns about the spread of the avian disease among mammals.

It was unclear whether the virus could spread from felines to humans, but the veterinarian who announced the latest confirmed infections advised people to avoid contact with pet cats in areas with poultry, which are at high risk of catching the disease.

“At this moment we know that felines can get infected for sure,” Dr Teeraphon Sirinaruemit, a veterinarian at Kasetsart University, told a news conference.

“It is best for owners not to have direct contact with cats if there are chickens in the neighbourhood.”

So far, cases in people have been traced largely to direct contact with birds suffering from the H5N1 virus that has decimated poultry stocks throughout Asia.

It has jumped to humans in Thailand and Vietnam, killing 22.

The pet cats are the first domesticated mammals known to have contracted the disease in the current outbreak.

World Health Organisation viral expert Dr Prasert Thongcharoen said it was a “very dangerous” development.

“Because this disease is new to the world, nobody knows how far it can go,” the WHO expert said, after reports of the cats’ possible infections surfaced.

Teeraphon said today that the carcasses of the three pet cats who died were tested, along with a white tiger at the Khao Khiew zoo in Chonburi province near Bangkok.

All were found to have the H5N1 virus. He said the white tiger has since recovered and is in good health.

The Khao Khiew zoo is the same one where a clouded leopard died of the bid flu last month, the first mammal apart from humans to die in this year’s outbreak.

Teeraphon said lab tests on three house cats and the tiger has “confirmed 100 percent identical genetic code to the bird flu virus found in chickens”.

Health experts are concerned about the bird flu infecting other animals, in part because that could prompt mutations in the virus that in turn makes it easier to pass among people.

That concern holds especially for pigs because of their genetic similarities to humans.

Teeraphon said the three cats were among 15 owned by a Thai woman in Nakhon Pathom province outside Bangkok.

One of them ate a chicken carcass on a farm where there was a bird flu outbreak, he said.

The cat disappeared and the remaining 14 became weak, started vomiting and coughing blood before dying.

But only three were sent for autopsy on February 11, which confirmed they had the virus, he said. It was not clear what happened to the remaining 11, but Teeraphon suggested that they had been buried by the owner.

The owner is healthy but is being monitored because one of the cats used to sleep in her bed, he said.