Bird Flu Outbreak in Cats: NYC Area - FYI If you are ADOPTING!

My neighboring town is now housing over 500 cats to be tested for bird flue, This happening now after a vet was infected after treating a cat in December.

There has been a quarantine issued for all shelters in the NYC Area for over 500 cats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/nyregion/sick-cats-virus-quarantine-center-aspca.html?_r=0

There are many stories on it this morning which you can Google.

I think it's important for anyone who lives in the NYC area or even surrounding areas, NJ, CT and Long Island, who cares for neighborhood feral's to be aware of a potential health risk of these sweet angels who roam our streets and you the care giver.  Also, anyone who has adopted a sweet kitty recently, be aware of the signs.

I'm not sure if this is the proper place for this story "thread" -  If it's not, please feel free to move to proper forum.

That is sad but I think it was only a matter of time.  I did a paper a few years ago on the flu epidemic of the early 1900's which was a bird flu that developed the ability to be contagious among humans.  There was a recent outbreak of bird flu in a tiger sanctuary in Thailand and it developed the ability to be contagious among cats.  They actually tested what was in the tigers and it was contagious among domestic cats as well.  It is scary stuff.  The more I researched for that paper the more anxious I became.  We tend to think of flu as just the seasonal flu that is only dangerous for the elderly and those with chronic disease, this is a completely different thing.

thank you for posting this.

I too always afraid of this. Too many cats may end up loosing their lives for something someone else spread. I worry about people flying into our areas from other areas and carrying diseases/bacteria that we don't see. scary times.

In the article posted=they named off two viruses. one is a canine flu. The other bird flu. maybe they both mutated? I only hope they dodged that bullet. I will do some more research. Good to know. Hopefully this would answer some questions for cats in that area who have been ill lately.

Hi @foxxycat   - I only posted one article but today Google filled with other articles as well.  I'm sure in the days to come this issue will be made more clear as to what needs to be done to clear this up.

As someone who's been looking into adopting a cat, I've been trying to educate myself on "real" questions to ask the shelters, especially that I'd love older siblings or an older kitty, and as I realized with Chestnut, they showed me that she was up to date on the recommended shots, but they neglected to tell me about her respiratory issues etc.  It never dawned on me that this flu could be a potential issue.

Also, we have a large network of people who feed the feral's who could be at risk.

I live close to LGA and I share your concerns as well.

Love to Honeybee the Ham. LOL

@2Cats4everLoved   Thank you for the love for the Miss Bee Kitty. Honeybee the Ham is what she is...hambone is what Jon calls her.

Back to flu=yes I was wondering about the ferals. I hope they can at least have a way to monitor the cats and hoping their immune systems keep up and running to beat the illness. I am sure google will fill up with other things and of course people will blow it out of perspective. Hopefully level heads prevail. There was something on that Wikipedia about someone getting the flu in NY in 2016 but then it mentioned the cats. also there was information that one of the vets came down with the flu and she was tested-she did recover from it=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N2

"In December 2016, an outbreak of low pathogenic avian influenza H7N2 occurred in a feline population in the New York City Animal Care Center (ACC) shelters after testing by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and confirmed by USDA’s National Veterinary Diagnostic Services Laboratory.^[9] Over 100 cats were found to be infected and subsequently quarantined, but only one human, a veterinarian involved in obtaining respiratory specimens, was found to be infected. The veterinarian had a brief illness with mild symptoms and recovered completely. All other humans exposed to the infected cats tested negative.^[3]"