Bird Flu Outbreak: Countries report infected cats; WHO issues warning

The recent surge in bird flu outbreaks among mammals could help the virus spread more easily among humans, WHO said.

An odd number of cats have died across Poland, and more than half of those felines tested positive for bird flu, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. The bird flu or avian influenza is also known as H5N1.

Thirty-four domestic cats in eight Polish provinces tested positive for avian influenza. This marks the first report of “high numbers of infected cats over a wide geographical area within a country,” the WHO said in a statement.

Investigators have not found evidence that the virus is spreading from cat-to-cat. Also, no illness has been reported in cat owners or other people exposed to the felines, the WHO further said.

Symptoms and cause

Many of the infected cats showed neurological signs (e.g., paralysis, seizures, etc.) and became severely ill. While domestic animals, including cats, rarely become infected with H5N1, cases have been reported most often after eating raw sick or dead infected wild birds, or from being in environments contaminated by them.

Among the infected cats, most lived inside with partial outdoor access (e.g. balconies or terraces), however, some were primarily outdoor cats with potential exposures to wild birds, the WHO noted.

Some infected cats were fed raw poultry or poultry parts. Of the 34 infected cats, 11 died from their infection and 14 were euthanized, WHO said.

Human contacts of the infected cats had reported no symptoms, WHO said. The surveillance period for those individuals is now complete, they added.

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Bird flu cases in South Korea

South Korean authorities placed a cat shelter in the country's capital Seoul under quarantine after detecting the H5N1 strain of bird flu in two cats at the facility, news agency Reuters reported, quoting the agriculture ministry.

There have been no cases of the highly pathogenic bird flu reported in humans in South Korea, the ministry said.

It was the first time since 2016 that avian influenza had been detected in a cat in the country, the ministry said in a statement issued on July 25.

Bird flu cases in Ireland

According to a BBC news report published two weeks ago, a conservation group in the Republic of Ireland has warned of "alarming and unprecedented outbreaks" of avian influenza.

BirdWatch Ireland said the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus is devastating Irish seabird colonies. Hundreds of dead birds have been discovered in recent weeks with carcasses testing positive for bird flu, the report further said.

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WHO warning

The recent surge in bird flu outbreaks among mammals could help the virus spread more easily among humans, WHO said on July 13.

WHO also said that avian influenza viruses normally spread among birds, but the increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza detections among mammals raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily.

As many as 10 countries across three continents have reported outbreaks in mammals to World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) since 2022.

"There is a recent paradigm change in the ecology and epidemiology of avian influenza which has heightened global concern as the disease spread to new geographical regions and caused unusual wild bird die-offs, and alarming rise in mammalian cases," said Gregorio Torres, Head of the Science Department at WOAH.