Cat catches swine flu
Up to now this blog has been exclusively about the threat posed to humans from H1N1 swine flu. But since we are reputedly a nation of animal lovers, I thought some would be interested in what the risks might be to pets. If you don't care about cats, look away now...
that a cat in Iowa has tested positive for H1N1 swine flu, the first time a cat has been diagnosed with this pandemic strain of influenza.
The 13-year-old cat, which has recovered, is thought to have caught the virus from someone in the household who was sick with flu. The AVMA report doesn't say whether the pet's owners have recovered, but hopefully they, like the moggy, are better.
"We've known certainly it's possible this could happen," said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner. "This may be the first instance where we have documentation that transmission occurred involving cats or dogs."
The vet who treated the cat, Dr Brett Sponseller, said two of the three people in the cat's home had flu-like symptoms before it became ill. Apparently the cat was lethargic, had lost its appetite and appeared to have trouble breathing.
Dr Ann Garvey, Iowa's state health veterinarian, said it is not yet known how sick cats or other pets could get from swine flu. "Because we haven't seen that many cases, it's difficult to give a blanket assessment on how sick it can make an animal," she said.
So do pets potentially pose a flu risk to their owners? Not according to the AVMA. Officials stressed that there is no evidence that swine flu can be passed from pets to people. "But it's so early in the game we don't know how it's going to behave. But that doesn't appear to be the concern. There's no sense of them passing it on to people," said Michael San Filippo, spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Dogs can get influenza but in a form () which cannot be passed to humans.
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