Health authorities say the threat of infection for people remained low even amid the spread of H5N1 virus among birds and cattle nationally.
Health authorities say the threat of infection for people remained low even amid the spread of H5N1 virus among birds and cattle nationally.
Health authorities say the threat of infection for people remained low even amid the spread of H5N1 virus among birds and cattle nationally.
Two pet cats in New York City died after being infected with bird flu, health officials said on Friday, a sign of the increased spread of a virus that has decimated chickens and cattle and sickened dozens of people nationally.
It was unclear how the cats had been infected. Potential sources of the virus include unpasteurized milk, infected food and exposure to infected birds. The officials did not immediately disclose when the cats became infected and died.
The discovery of bird flu in the cats raises concerns in a city where hundreds of thousands of pet and feral cats live, although the immediate threat to people remained low, health officials said.
In 2016, a veterinarian was infected with bird flu after having contact with a sick cat at a Manhattan animal shelter. The type of flu in that case was far less severe than the H5N1 bird flu viruses that have infected wild and domestic birds and cattle herds in the United States for more than a year.
“Bird flu viruses present a wider risk to the general public only if the virus develops the ability to transmit between people, which we have not seen,” the city’s acting health commissioner, Dr. Michelle Morse, said in a statement.
Nationwide, more than 100 domestic cats are known to have been infected with bird flu since 2022. Dead cats found on dairy farms have sometimes been the first sign that the virus was tearing through cattle herds.