When the bird flu virus started beating dairy farms last year, dead barn cats were often the first sign.
A New report from the centers for the control and prevention of diseases indicates that cats may also carry the main load in the households in the USA: If cats die unexpectedly, the H5N1 bird flu virus can be in the house.
The study of which was accidentally published this month describes an investigation into the public health system in Michigan from May 2024, in which milk workers with bird flu symptoms and their pet cats were involved.
The examination was initiated as a result of veterinarians who saw sick cats, and found that these cats belonged to milk workers -which made the connection to the illness of the animals and the H5N1 outbreak, the Michigan milk cattle herd infected.
The two employees of the dairy industry refused to test the virus so that the investigators could not definitely demonstrate the spread of the infection. However, both workers had shown symptoms that indicate infection, according to the study.
In one case, a worker who was not busy on a farm, but transported a non -pasturized milk between companies, reported conjunctivitis. The other person worked on a milk farm and reported to see several dead barn cats on the site. He suffered from gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting a day before a pet cat got sick.
Both employees also ended communication with health officials before the examination ended. According to the study, fear of losing employment to imply dairy farms.
Two young people who lived in one of the employees of the employee also got sick. Both tested the virus negatively.
Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center of the Brown University in Providence, RI, said the paper asks more questions than it answers.
“We knew that cats could get sick with H5N1,” she said. “This paper raises, but does not answer the question of whether agricultural workers can spread H5N1 on their cats. We have to learn more about how this has occurred, as this can inform our understanding of whether people can transmit the virus to other animals, including other people. “
Since the workers had refused to be tested for the virus, the authors could not come to the conclusion that they had handed over the virus to their pet cats.
According to the study, a 5-year-old inner cat was brought to a local veterinary clinic after a reduced appetite, disinterest in care, disorientation and fatigue. After the cat was not improved over two more days, it was transferred to the veterinary center of the Michigan State University, where the cat was put to sleep after “faster disease progression”.
Since the owner of the cat was a dairy product and there were reports on H5N1 in local dairy farms, the cat's body was sent to the university's diagnostic laboratory, where the tests confirmed the presence of the virus. This discovery triggered the investigation by state public health officers.
In the second household of the milk workers, a 6-month-old Maine Coon cat, which lived exclusively in the interiors, was brought directly to the veterinary clinic of the Michigan state. The cat also tested the virus positively and died 24 hours later.
A second cat in the household had no symptoms and tested negatively for the virus.
The owner of the cats reported that he had not worn protective equipment and often sprayed in the eyes and face and clothing by milk. The worker told the investigators that the Maine Coon cat often rolled in these clothes, which the second cat never did.
The owner reported that an eye irritation was experienced two days before the Coon Cat got sick. The owner was not tested for influenza, rejected the antiviral treatment and ended communication with the investigators.
“This is depressing and continues until we have more serious illnesses that people are afraid,” said John Korslund, a veterinarian and researcher of the US Department of Agriculture.
He said his greatest concern was the time delay between infections, symptoms and tests that can be on the order of three days to two weeks – a break that enables the virus to move undiscovered by agricultural and the environment.
“We consistently test people far too late – after cow -herds have shown clinical signs and” recovered “the workers,” he said. “If we want to take human H5 infections seriously, we have to use fast tests in houses (workers) when the eyes are red for the first time, regardless of what happens in the herd on the farm.”
“The workers, the cats and the mass milk samples are the best guards for early dairy herd diagnoses,” he said.