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You might have heard concerning the unhappy demise of no less than one cat after consuming uncooked frozen cat meals contaminated with the H5N1 virus. While a single fatality may not precisely have you ever quaking in your boots, it was sufficient to persuade a number of pet meals firms to check their merchandise and subject voluntary remembers. Recalling merchandise could be a particularly pricey enterprise for any firm, and never an motion taken evenly, so how apprehensive do pet house owners have to be?
The Facts About Bird Flu
Avian influenza, generally known as ‘bird flu’ or H5N1, is a extremely pathogenic type of influenza virus that’s devastating to the poultry business.1 Historically, now we have seen the illness unfold from hen to hen and sometimes from hen to mammal, together with people, cats, and cattle, however throughout the latest outbreak, there have been instances of virus transmission between mammals.2 Why is that this a priority? Well, it means that this virus is continuous to vary and evolve, which might have devastating outcomes.
H5N1 is nearly at all times deadly in birds, which may have a devastating influence on wild hen populations. Additionally, obligatory cullings in poultry farms are sometimes applied in an try and comprise the unfold of the virus. In cattle, indicators of an infection are often delicate, with milk manufacturing most importantly affected. Humans, who can contract hen flu by direct contact with contaminated birds or mammals, are likely to endure delicate flu-like signs of fever, headache, and coughing, with occasional vomiting and diarrhea as properly. Over the previous 12 months, there have been lower than 70 confirmed human instances of H5N1 within the US, with solely a single fatality. However, it’s how the virus impacts cats that’s holding loads of pet house owners up at night time.
Image Credit: Photoarte, Shutterstock
Cats, Dogs, and Bird Flu
The undeniable fact that cats could be contaminated with avian influenza just isn’t new info, and the vast majority of instances are seen in farm cats or strays which have caught and eaten wild birds or ingested unpasteurized milk. In truth, sick barn cats have typically been used as an early indicator to dairy farmers that hen flu could also be within the herd. Unlike in people and cattle, hen flu is usually deadly in cats, with medical indicators together with fever, lethargy, reddened or infected eyes, discharge from the eyes and nostril, problem respiratory, neurologic indicators, like tremors, seizures, incoordination, or blindness.
The latest demise of a home cat in Washington County has led to widespread testing by pet meals firms, with some issuing remembers for sure poultry-based merchandise. While supporters of uncooked pet meals insist that there isn’t a want for alarm, the case does spotlight one of the vital obvious issues with the raw-feeding pattern: pathogen threat.
Although a uncooked food regimen has been proven to offer many well being advantages to pets, the chance of bacterial, and now viral, contamination is a hazard that may be alleviated with some light cooking. There are actually a lot of firms creating fresh-frozen meals as a safer various to uncooked, optimizing the dietary advantages whereas minimizing the chance of pathogens.
To date, though canine are in a position to change into contaminated with hen flu, the one instances discovered – both by pure or experimental publicity – have been asymptomatic. That’s excellent news for the canine, however not so good for the unfold of the virus.
The huge fear for cats is that we now know that they’ll change into contaminated with hen flu from direct contact with contaminated animals, by consuming birds or unpasteurized milk, and thru the consumption of contaminated uncooked meat. Coupled with the truth that this virus is especially virulent in cats, pet house owners are proper to be involved.
How Can I Protect My Cat from Bird Flu?
The very first thing to know is that statistically, the chance of hen flu an infection on your cat could be very low, however that doesn’t imply you shouldn’t keep vigilant. The possibilities that your cat will come into direct contact with an contaminated animal are extraordinarily low, but when your cat is fed a uncooked meat food regimen, notably one which incorporates poultry, you might wish to rethink their meals alternative.
The FDA issued the next recommendation to pet house owners:
“H5N1 can be deadly to cats, as well as dogs, so we encourage consumers to carefully consider the risk of this emerging pathogen before feeding their pets uncooked meat or an uncooked pet food product. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Veterinary Medical Association discourage the feeding of uncooked meat diets to companion animals due to the potential presence of pathogens, including H5N1. Heat treatments have been shown to be effective for inactivating H5N1 in meat, milk, and egg products. We recommend that consumers follow the USDA guidelines for handling and thorough cooking of raw meat before feeding. Animals should also be kept from hunting and consuming wild birds.”
Image Credit: Jaromir Chalabala, Shutterstock
The Take Home Message
Although the chance of hen flu to your cat stays extraordinarily low, the consequences of the virus are extreme, so you will need to keep updated with details about this outbreak and the way it might have an effect on your pets. There are some easy methods to maintain your cat’s threat even decrease, and a kind of is to make sure you are solely feeding meals that has undergone some type of warmth remedy. If you do use a uncooked meals food regimen, we might advocate getting in contact with the provider to ensure they’re screening for H5N1, and take into account cooking meat merchandise earlier than feeding them to your pet – simply bear in mind to take away bones from rooster!
Keep your kitty indoors, or if that isn’t an possibility, make some adjustments to scale back their looking success. To ensure you keep within the loop, subscribe to Catster.com, and should you suspect that your pet has been contaminated or uncovered to avian flu, it can be crucial that you just contact your veterinarian instantly for recommendation and comply with the rules set out by the CDC.
The put up What Does the Bird Flu Pet Food Recall Mean For You & Your Cat? by Dr. Karyn Kanowski BVSc MRCVS (Veterinarian) appeared first on Catster. Copying over whole articles infringes on copyright legal guidelines. You is probably not conscious of it, however all of those articles have been assigned, contracted and paid for, so they are not thought-about public area. However, we recognize that you just just like the article and would like it should you continued sharing simply the primary paragraph of an article, then linking out to the remainder of the piece on Catster.com.
