Oregon avian flu cat death prompts nationwide raw pet food recall

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-12-29 19:10:32 | Updated at 2025-01-01 19:02:47 2 days ago
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Oregon avian flu cat death prompts nationwide raw pet food recall
University of Minnesota ^ | 12/29/24 | Lisa Schnirring

Posted on 12/29/2024 11:05:18 AM PST by EBH

The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) yesterday reported that a house cat has died from H5N1 avian flu after eating raw frozen pet food, which has prompted the voluntary recall of raw pet food that was sold nationwide through distributors in 12 states as well as in British Columbia.

The development is part of a growing number of avian flu infections in cats, including new detections in pets from a second California county.

Genetic match between cat and raw food viruses In a statement, the ODA said the house cat that tested positive for H5N1 died after eating raw food. Tests confirmed a genetic match between a sample from the cat and the virus from Northwest Naturals raw and frozen pet food.

Ryan Scholz, DVM, Oregon’s state veterinarian, said officials are confident the cat contracted the virus from Northwest Naturals food. “This cat was strictly an indoor cat; it was not exposed to the virus in its environment, and results from the genome sequencing confirmed that the virus recovered from the raw pet food and infected cat were exact matches to each other.”

The recall involves the company’s 2lb Feline Turkey Recipe raw & frozen pet food. The product was sold nationwide through distributors in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington.

Oregon’s Health Authority is monitoring household members who had contact with the sick cat, and the ODA is urging consumers who bought the recalled food to discard the product.

Virus kills two Santa Barbara County cats Last week, Los Angeles County issued an animal health alert about H5 in domestic cats following illness reports in cats from two households, one where cats had consumed recalled raw milk and the other involving a cat that was exposed to an unspecified commercially produced raw pet food.

On December 23, the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department announced the confirmation of two H5 avian flu infections in pet cats from two different households. After testing positive for influenza A, a rare occurrence in cats, the cats experienced severe neurological symptoms and died from their infections.

The source of infection is still under investigation.

“Currently, there is no evidence of local cat-to-cat, cat-to-human or human-to-human spread of H5 bird flu, and the risk to the general public continues to be low,” the health department said. It added that people who have close contact with wild birds or their feces, infected cats, dairy cows or raw milk, sick poultry, and infected cats may have a higher risk of exposure.

Dairy herd detections top 900 amid more detections in poultry and wild birds Since December 23, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed 25 more H5N1 detections in dairy cattle, all from California, raising the state’s total to 685 and the national total to 901 from 16 states.

APHIS also confirmed more outbreaks in poultry flocks in five different states, including three more layer farms in three different California counties, Riverside, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus.

The virus also hit turkey farms in Oklahoma’s Adair County, Illinois’ Lawrence County, and Michigan’s Ottawa County.

Also, the virus struck backyard poultry in Missouri, Vermont, and California.

Meanwhile, APHIS reported more than 60 more H5N1 detections in wild birds across a wide portion of the country, mostly involving waterfowl. The sample collection dates range from late November and into December.

The detections are a mix of hunter-harvested, mortality events, and live sampling. Many of the samples are from Georgia, Iowa, New Mexico, and northwestern states including Washington.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: birdflu; h5n1

1 posted on 12/29/2024 11:05:18 AM PST by EBH

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