When Fluffy Catches the Bird Flu

This story worries me!

Millions of people world wide have pets in their homes Cats, Dogs, Birds etcetera.

Lots of people, senior citizens, shut-ins, widows, dinks, (double incomes no kids) their pets are there only companionships or family they have, it’s a part of life they won’t do without and to ask them to put down a pet, or even in a worst case senerieo the local heath department going house to house forcibly putting down pets would be a sad day indeed.

If the bird flu starts to mutate and infects everyday dogs and cats, will you put down your pet to stop the spread of the disease.

If my pets are not sick! No I would not put them down.

When Fluffy Catches the Bird Flu
By Randy Dotinga
02:00 AM Jun, 26, 2006

Among household pets, cats and birds seem to pose the most danger as potential transmitters of epidemic disease. In Germany, a cat's death from avian flu earlier this year sparked the government to warn people to keep their cats inside and not to sleep with them.


www.wired.com...

I had read about this, I think somewhere on another ATS thread a while back. The fact that cats are dying from H5N1 and no one is talking about it.

It seems that a cat eats an infected bird and then it spreads from cat to cat. The question is then, would the sick cats infect humans as the chickens do. It is a serious problem if this occurs in a country wehre domestic cats are so highly valued. Think about it, it wouldn't even have to come to human to human transmission in the US to be a catastrophe. If it spreads from cat to cat and so many of of us have cats.......

What would I do? I would seriously have to consider the possiblility that if I refused to comply, my refusal to comply could result in the death of myself or other humans (or both). My beloved four leggeds are everything to me (feline & canine) but I would never put them over the life of a child or any other human being, whether they are also part of my family or not. I just can't go there.

Here's another article about felines and the Avian Flu that addresses more of this going back to 2004.

Feline Link in Bird Flu Chain

Some snippets from above link:

The trend to get rid of cats is especially strong in Germany and Austria, where at least six cats and a few rodents, like martens, were found to be infected with a strain of avian flu as a result of close contact with infected birds.

The first cases of the H5N1 virus in felines were reported in 2004 in Thailand, where 14 cats died after eating the remains of infected birds. Tigers and leopards at a Thai zoo were also infected through similar means.

In the laboratory tests conducted by Osterhaus's team, cats fed infected meat contracted the disease and transmitted it to other cats in the same cage through their breath.

That last ones a bit of a YIKES!, don't you think?

I have 3 wonderful cats that I love dearly. 1 of them was my next door neighbors cat who ran away from home and made his new home at my house (with his owners permission). He was an outside cat, but since the bird flu began showing up in animals I have been working on keeping him inside. Believe me when I say that is no small feat. It has gotten easier as time has gone by, but sometimes he looks out the window so longingly it breaks my heart. But I know he will have a much longer life inside than if he remained an outside cat.

I am hoping that by keeping all my cats inside and also taking some other simple precautions like not wearing outside shoes in the house, and using a disinfectant on my garage floor and other areas, I will be able to keep all my pets (and my family) safe.
I have also stockpiled the usual items (especially cat food and cat litter) just in case of emergency.

As to whether I would lay down my pets to stop the spread of the disease, that is such a hard question to answer, but in my heart of hearts I know I would have to make the most heart wrenching decision and lay them down. This is a very sad thing to have to think about.

We share our home with three cats, and we love them like children. They stay indoors for the most part, other than brief forays out on a shared balcony when we sit outside.

As much as I love them though, I would kill them if I thought they were a threat to the health and safety of the human members of my family or our friends.

Is that too harsh ?

Of course it's not a harsh thing to do, but it certainly is difficult. Even under normal circumstances (where the cat is just too old and suffering serious health problems it is a trauma to put them out when the time comes. I just had to do it again on Monday. So putting out a healthy animal has got to be the pits.

In the end, our pets are our companions, not a substitute for our fellow human beings though. I have particular disdain for people who forget this and view animals as better than or more important than our fellow humans, but that is my personal view. I feel it shows a dangerous and selfish, perhaps even imature veiw of humanity.

From this standpoint, you have to go back to that -the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one - and do the right thing for your fellow man. People putting their pets above the risk, could definately be a problem and possibly the downfall of any attempts to contain a pandemic. It's just inexcusable.

What if Granny, or your 10 year old child has contracted a contagion that could kill the rest of your family ?
The survival of your group is dependant on getting rid of an infectious member of the family.

It would be a very hard decision to make, and I think any parent would decide to keep an infectious child even if circumstances and the CDC or WHO said you should throw them into the nearest hole.

A pandemic will happen, that's just a fact, and when it starts sweeping the globe we will all need to make hard choices inorder to save our civilization.

The Spanish Flu that spread in 1918 was also a mutated bird flu that humans had very little imunity for. That one was called H1N1

One theory is that the virus strain originated at Fort Riley, Kansas, by two genetic mechanisms — genetic drift and antigenic shift — in viruses in poultry and swine which the fort bred for local consumption. But evidence from a recent reconstruction of the virus suggests that it jumped directly from birds to humans, without traveling through swine.
en.wikipedia.org...

If you think about how densely populated some areas of the world are now, and the same thing were to happen today, it would criple the world.

NO AIR TRAVEL
NO TRAVEL AT ALL
NO INTERNATIONAL TRADE
TOTAL QUARANTINE OF INFECTED AREAS
MONTHS WILL GO BY BEFORE A FLU SHOT IS MADE FOR THE PUBLIC, IF EVER

And millions of people will die. :shk:



So to hell with fluffy, this whole scenario is very frightening. It would become an economic melt-down for the entire planet because avian influenza tends to target the young and healthy members of the population.

Avian flu tends to kill younger people, much as the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic did, the World Health Organization said in an analysis of more than 200 cases.
www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2006/07/02/MNG9AJO3VT1.DTL

I sure hope we dodge this bullet, but I think it's aimed right at us.

My family’s plan

Along with my wife and four kids I share my home with four cats, 1 dog and 2 ferrets. At the first signs of avian flu, the cats will be locked in the house, upstairs where escape is not likely. The dog will only be allowed out to fertilize the lawn, and only supervised on a leash. Any cat that makes it outside will not be allowed back inside and WILL BE KILLED outside. Any cat that stays inside will be allowed to live, however in the event that the SHTF and no other food is available... well, lets just say that cats and ferrets are the other-other-other white meat and leave it at that.

dude when fluffy catches bird flue im getting out the 12 gauge and gonna!....well you guys no wut the rest...BOOM!!! FLUFFY!!!....BOOM! for fun....and well thats it folks

Bird flu is a "zoonotic" disease - which means it infects a variety of animals and humans, as well as birds.


Scientists have known for some time that H5N1 can infect a variety of animals including cats, dogs, ferrets, and pigs.

The big question is, "How do these animals catch bird flu?" ...The answer is that they are infected when they eat contaminated food or drink contaminated water. BUT - authorities do not want to jeopardize the food and water industries, so oral transmission - and the gastro symptoms - are just not recognized officially. It's called patronization, or maybe censorship.

Here's another new article, soon to disappear like the rest:

Bird flu case in Thai dog raises questions about infection

“This is the third species or fourth species that has been infected by eating carcasses. So I think we really have to think about the risk of oral ingestion,” said Michael Perdue, an avian flu expert with the WHO's global influenza program. ...“I mean, these guys are getting infected somehow and we don't know how.”

Since H5N1 flared up in Asia in late 2003, tigers, leopards, domestic cats and now dogs have become infected with the virus by eating infected chicken or duck carcasses. Other mammals — a stone marten, and a small number of pigs — have also been shown to be susceptible to infection, though in those cases the mode of transmission isn't yet documented.

There have also been some human cases where it's thought ingestion of virus was the mode of infection — most notably a trio of brothers in Vietnam who fell ill after eating uncooked soup made from duck's blood. ...Influenza infection occurs in the respiratory tract, when the mucous membranes of the nose and throat come in contact with viruses propelled through the air by sneezes and coughs. A person can also become infected by touching items onto which viruses have been sneezed and then touch their nose or mouth. ...It's not thought that infection can occur in the human gastrointestinal tract. And the WHO's official position is that there is no evidence people can become infected by eating properly cooked poultry or eggs.

[edit on 12-10-2006 by soficrow]