(Bloomberg) — Two house cats died after contracting bird flu in the homes of dairy workers, a troubling sign that the virus may be moving between species and becoming more widespread.
The cats’ owners lived in separate households in Michigan and developed symptoms of H5N1 last May, according to a report released Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both worked on farms that had cases of bird flu and displayed symptoms before the cats fell ill, but declined testing.
While human infections have been rare during the current outbreak of H5N1 bird flu, with a single death, more than a dozen US states have reported infected cattle. The virus has caused hundreds of deaths in decades past, and the suggestion that it has jumped from cows to people to cats indicates that it may have taken on a more infectious form.
One of the cats was known to roll around in the worker’s dirty clothes, indicating the virus could have spread from the clothes to the cat. Both cats displayed respiratory and neurological issues after infection, the report said.
Outdoor cats have been reported to die from H5N1 infection after drinking raw milk or exposure to infected animals, including cattle and poultry. The study, published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, was the first to find indoor cats with the infection.
The report was originally posted on the CDC’s website on Feb. 5, before being taken down during the US Health and Human Services communications freeze, the New York Times previously reported.
Efforts by the Trump administration to cut budgets and enact widespread government layoffs in several health agencies have raised questions about data-sharing during the outbreak and confusion over the government’s response. Earlier this week, the US Department of Agriculture said officials tracking bird flu were mistakenly fired and are working to reinstate the employees.
Twenty-four veterinary staff members had interacted with the infected cats. Seven of them reported symptoms of illness, but the five who agreed to testing did not have the bird flu virus, according to the CDC report.
The risk to human health remains low, the CDC said, but recommends dairy workers wear protective equipment when working with exposed animals.
–With assistance from Tonya Garcia.
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