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Title: “New Strain of Bird Flu Likely Came From Cats, Scientists Believe”
Keywords: bird flu, cats, Michigan, CDC, H5N1, genomic analysis, infected cats
Tags: bird-flu, cats, michigan, cdc, h5n1, genomic-analysis, infected-cats
Summary: According to scientists working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a new strain of bird flu that infected numerous cats in Michigan last summer was likely passed to the animals from wild birds, rather than being directly transmitted to them by domestic fowl. This discovery sheds light on the idea that cats have become important carriers of bird flu, as the animals’ vulnerability to the virus and the resulting infections pose a heightened risk for public health authorities in the United States and could even lead to a repeat of the catastrophic 2015 outbreak that killed more than 100 million chickens in the country. By employing advanced sequencing techniques, researchers were able to pinpoint how the virus evolved in Michigan cats, notably demonstrating that it originated from wild birds and subsequently spread to cats living in close proximity to H5N1-infected poultry. This finding is significant because cats are not considered direct targets for surveillance of bird flu, despite the fact that they are known to contract the virus, which may then spread person to person as readily as is the case in humans. With this new knowledge fostering renewed vigor among researchers in their search for effective countermeasures, the question now remains: Will cats cause bird flu to jump into humans in the future?
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