The bird flu was not in Tim Hanson’s mind when he fed his cats with pet specialized food containing raw chicken.
“You go to the pet store and it was the premium raw food,” he said. “I was finely motivated to a consistency that I thought it was beneficial for my cats.”
But at the beginning of February, one of his cats, Kira, developed a fever and stopped eating. A test ordered by a veterinarian returned positive for avian flu. In a matter of days, Kira’s condition had deteriorated: it became a lethargic and had problems breathing.
After several trips to the veterinarian and the emergency room in Portland, Oregon, where Hanson lives, made the painful decision to leave Kira.
“She was the happiest cat I’ve had,” he said. “You would walk next to her and she would make a little back and put her back on her to rub her belly. He did it at the hospital last night … She simply dropped on her back so that we could rub her belly.”
Pet food manufacturer, Wild Coast Pet Foods, later recalled that many of the Kira formula had consumed due to the possible pollution of the aviar flu.
Hanson filed a lawsuit against the company earlier this month, claiming that he had not revealed the risk of avian flu in his raw pet foods. You are looking for approximately $ 8,000 to cover the cost of Kira’s veterinary invoices. Wild Coast did not respond to a request for comments. In a letter to customers, the company said there was “transition to completely cooked poultry recipes to eliminate any potential risk.”
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, 126 domestic cats in the US. UU. They have been infected with aviar flu since 2022. Around half of those cases were recorded this year, and many were exposed through food or milk.
“We see continuous cats of cats with infection by the avian flu of the whole country, and is maintained increasing in recent months,” Suresh Kuchipudi, a professor of infectious diseases and microbiology at the Faculty of Public Health of the University of Pittsburgh said.
In cats, avian flu tends to be fast and lethal. Although the general risk for interior cats is low, Kuchipudi and other experts who study or diagnose infections say that the threat is increasing. With the extended avian flu between the birds of corral and the cattle, there is a constant opportunity for the virus to enter the supply of raw food. And although there is still no evidence that cats can transmit the flu to people, the potential increases as more cats get sick.
“We have no evidence, but it does not mean that it may not have happened, or it cannot happen,” Kuchipudi said.
At least 3 pet food retreats in 4 months
Most pet foods are heated at a temperature high enough to kill pathogens before packing, but avian flu can be delayed in raw foods if obtained from infected poultry, for example, of chickens that were sacrificed due to an outbreak.
“The animals that were depopulated could have ended in the pet food chain,” said Laura Goodman, an assistant professor at the Baker of Animal Health at Cornell University. “It is not uncommon for poor meat to end in the pet food chain.”
In the last four months, at least three pet manufacturers have removed lots that contain raw poultry. Food and medication administration in January warned manufacturers who use raw meat to reevaluate their food security plans in the light of recent diseases and cat deaths.
Other cats have been exposed to flu in dairy farms, probably for drinking raw milk of infected cows. And in some cases, outdoor cats have collected the virus directly from dead birds.
A Centers For Nursing and Prevent report in February also described two interior cats that lived with dairy agricultural workers and contorted the aviar flu. The investigation suggests that “the people who work in the milk or transporting milk have the potential to take the virus to their house with their clothes or in their shoes, and in turn the cats are exposed,” said Kimberly Dodd, dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Michigan State University, which co -authorized the report.
There is no active surveillance for avian flu in healthy cats, so cases could be little informed. A study of street cats in the Netherlands found that almost 12% were positive for avian flu antibodies.
“It is possible that we are only testing the most sick cats or a cat in a home. It is very likely that there have been many cases that the cat was not taken to a veterinarian or the tests were not done,” said Kristy Pabilonia, director of veterinary diagnosis laboratories at Colorado State University.
Pabilonia supervised the diagnostic tests for a hairless cat called Leonardo DiCaprio, who was discovered that he had avian flu in January. Leo’s owner Steve Werfelmann said his cat had eaten raw food based on chicken from the Savage Pet company, which withdrew dozens of lots earlier this month.
“When we adopted it, that was the recommended food” for your skin, said Werfelmann. “But then speaking with the veterinarian and going through this process, they really told us that there is no real scientific evidence to support that raw foods are better.”
Savage Pet sent NBC News to an online statement, which says “all our poultry ingredients are inspected and approved by USDA for human consumption.”
The current voltage of the aviar flu, which began to spread between birds and poultry in the US.
“You can see circular cats or have an inclination of the head or simply act in a very abnormal way. Some of those clinical signs are very similar to what we see in rage,” Dodd said.
Leo did not show neurological symptoms, apart from the wobble in the rear legs, Werfelmann said. Instead, its main symptoms were fever, lethargy and not eat.
“We thought I was going to die,” Werfelmann said.
The Colorado Agriculture Department announced this month that 11 domestic cats there had received a flu of poultry or pet food. Leo was the only one to survive.
‘It’s milk’
Scientists are still trying to understand what makes avian flu so deadly in cats. The virus is highly fatal for birds, but seems to affect cats more severely than other mammals. There have been many less cases in dogs, and although almost 1,000 dairy herds have been affected, the disease tends to be softer in the cows. In people, only one of the 70 cases registered in the United States has been fatal.
Kuchipudi’s research has identified receptors in the bodies of cats that allow them to become infected with a wide range of flu virus, including H5N1.
“When you examine these animals, the virus is everywhere in the body,” he said. “It causes a systemic infection that is potentially very serious.”
Joseph Journell lost two of his cats, Alexander and Tuxedo, for bird flu with only a few days away in November. I had been giving them raw milk, believing that it contains additional nutrients. A third cat, Big Boy, also got sick after drinking milk and ended in a critical condition.
“I said: ‘Whatever is wrong with Big Boy is the same as it is wrong with Tuxsie and, obviously, the same is bad with Alexander,” said Journell, who lives in San Bernardino, California. “It’s milk.”
Big Boy tested positive for an avian flu through a urine sample in December. Since then he has recovered.
The milk consumed by the three cats come from a California dairy farm called Raw Farm LLC, according to Journell’s lawyer. The farm issued a retirement after California health officials said the samples were positive for avian flu. The farm did not respond to the request for comments of NBC News, but in an online statement last month, he said that the retirement had been “unfounded” and that “there was no evidence of adulterated product that connected to any consumer disease.”
Like Hanson in Oregon, Journell decided to follow legal actions. His lawyer sent a letter in January to the owner of Raw Farm, indicating Journell’s intention to recover more than $ 16,000 in veterinary expenses, lost wages and caretaker rates for Big Boy. They expect to mediate in the situation with the company outside the court, but plan to file a lawsuit if that is not possible.
A threat to humans?
When the Veterinary Office learned of Kira’s raw food diet, said Hanson, they suspected that the flu immediately avian.
“They immediately put on their PPE,” said Hanson. “I was surprised.”
Although there is some evidence that cats can pass the flu avian with each other, there is no evidence so far that the virus have transmitted to people. However, the more the virus spreads in cats, the more opportunities it has to mutate and improve to spread to humans. Outdoor cats, in particular, could serve as a “bridge” transmission between wild animals and pets or domestic humans, Kuchipudi said.
In 2016, a veterinarian in a refuge of animals in New York City tested positive for a strain of aviar flu, H7N2, after contact with sick cats.
“We must be aware of these continuous circulations that could complicate the transmission of the disease and also [pose] A risk to human health, ”said Kuchipudi.
Hanson said he was proven by Avian flu after Kira died and was negative. In the last days of his cat, he said, he wore a N95 mask around him and washed his clothes when he returned home from the Animal Hospital.
He hopes that his story will serve as a warning to other cat owners.
“I don’t want more cats to die,” he said. “Hopefully people can learn from Kira’s death.”
