Several cats have died from bird flu in Colorado - but some of them have never been outdoors
Scientists are urgently working to determine how the house cats contracted and died from bird flu, as the virus continues to spread across the country.
Avian influenza has spilled over into domestic cat populations, with six felines dying in Colorado after contracting the virus, the state’s Department of Public Health has announced.
Two of the six cases were “indoor-only cats with no direct exposures to the virus,” according to the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association’s (CVMA) website. Three were “known indoor/outdoor cats” that had access to the outside, hunted mice and/or small birds as prey, and also spent time indoors. One of the cases was "directly associated with a known infected commercial dairy facility."
“There is high abundance of virus in Colorado at this time, predominantly being detected in domestic dairy cattle in commercial dairy herds with spillover into mammals and wild birds on and near these premises,” read a statement released by the Colorado Department of Public Health, State Veterinarian.
Experts suggested that the deaths might be connected to mice in and around homes that carried bird flu. According to Dr. Jane Sykes, a professor of small animal internal medicine at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, cats could have hunted these rodents without their guardian’s knowledge. Another potential source of infection could be raw food fed to pets.
“I think the link is potentially here with the house cats that don't go outside is we're seeing a lot of mice that are testing positive for H5N1,” said Kay Russo, a Colorado veterinarian with RSM Consulting. “So I wonder perhaps if these wild mice populations are picking up the virus and then bringing that into the houses. Because in Colorado we tend to see mice get in fairly frequently, especially as the weather shifts.”
At least 36 domestic cats across the country have been reported to have the virus since March. But some of the animals lived on dairy farms, meaning the source of infection was more traceable. Experts have called this development of cases involving indoor cats ‘a big concern’, calling for increased surveillance and stronger messaging.
This is the latest development in the avian flu epidemic which has been raging across the US, causing the deaths of an estimated 100 million birds, and spreading to cows and a small amount of humans.
Between April and August 9, 13 human cases with mild symptoms, most commonly pink eye, have been recorded. However, experts caution that many other cases have likely been missed.
“I am very confident there are more people being infected than we know about,” said Gregory Gray, the infectious disease researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch, who recently led a study into potential undetected bird flu infections. “Largely, that’s because our surveillance has been so poor.”
“We need to figure out what we can do to stop this thing,” Gray said. “It is not just going away.”
Scientists are concerned that with each new infection, the dairy strain of bird flu has the chance to turn into something more dangerous to humans.
“Viruses are notorious for developing mutations or taking genes from other viruses,” said Michelle Barron, an epidemiologist at the University of Colorado Denver and UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital. “At what point is there risk that the virus changes and now makes people severely ill?”
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