A cat living next to a duck farm infected with bird flu has been infected with the H5N1 virus.
A cat euthanized in late December tested positive for H5N1, the virus that causes bird flu, reports West France this Tuesday, raising fears of a wider contamination of mammals. The cat belonged to a family living in Mauléon (Deux-Sèvres). A farm of laying ducks, next to the family home, had been decimated by avian flu a few days before the death of the cat
“It’s not new that a cat is infected with avian flu” explains to BFMTV.com Jeanne Brugère-Picoux, member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Veterinary Academy of France.
“It’s quite exceptional, but it happens,” she says.
Previous cases of infected cats
She cites examples already identified in Asia, even on infected big cats, but also about cats on the island of Rügen (Germany) in 2006. “The bird flu virus can sometimes infect other animal species such as pigs and other mammals, including humans”, writes the Institut Pasteur.
In the case of Deux-Sèvres, the high exposure with nearby contaminated livestock certainly increased the chances of infection.
This infection, however, remains “a first” for Pierre Bessière, teacher-researcher in virology at the National Veterinary School of Toulouse, interviewed by West France“this is the first time in the world that a case of domestic contamination has been reported with a virus belonging to the H5 type strains that have been circulating in Europe since 2016.”
For Jeanne Brugère-Picoux, this first would be mainly due to the fact that we do not test cats or dogs a lot for this disease. The owners of the dead cat in Deux-Sèvres also declare to the regional daily that the veterinarian, to whom they had brought their animal in December, had not wanted to test their still living cat for avian flu.
A risk of contamination on a larger scale?
The fear in this bird-to-cat transmission is that the virus will mutate and end up being easily transmitted to humans or between mammals. This virus “mutates all the time” and for the moment it “has not adapted” underlines Jeanne Brugère-Picoux, declaring that among these species, as in humans, there “has never been a epidemic as can be seen in avian species.”
Santé Publique France writes as follows: that “human-to-human transmission is rare, generally limited to transmission between a primary case and a member of his or her entourage or healthcare personnel”. On the other hand, “none of the avian or swine influenza viruses with zoonotic potential currently circulating are capable of initiating sustained human-to-human transmission.”
And “according to the most recent scientific data, the risk of transmission of avian influenza from a domestic mammal to a human is very low”, writes the Canadian government website.
But Pierre Bessière calls on him to remain “vigilant”. “Recently, mutants have been found in foxes that allow viruses to adapt to mammals. Even if the risk of a pandemic virus appearing is low, we are not immune to a bad surprise”, he says on a daily basis.
On January 23, France had 286 cases of avian flu in poultry farming, mainly in the west (Pays de la Loire region), according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Between August 1 and December 21, 3.3 million animals were slaughtered in France because of this epidemic, half of which were ducks.
