Flu Stories: Bird Flu aka Cat Flu?

by DemFromCT Well, what do you expect when cats eat birds? As if bird weren't enough to worry about, maybe H5N1 should be aka cat flu.

"The prevalence of the virus is quite high" judging from preliminary tests on swabs of the cats' upper airways, C.A. Nidom, a scientist at Airlangga University in Surabaya, said in a telephone interview on Feb. 28. Nidom found H5N1 in 98 of 500 cats living near poultry markets in high-risk areas on the island of Java and in Lampung province on southern Sumatra island.

There have been concerns about cats for some time, originally brought forward in Feb 2006 by a scientist named Andrew Jeremijenko, but the extent of the problem, at least in high risk geographic areas, has been under-appreciated by many. You can assume if there's a SE Asian live bird market where H5N1 is found, and there are cats in the vicinity, that's a risk area. This is an important story for many reasons. At its core, it highlights the difficulty of just 'getting rid' of the H5N1 virus. That's the idea of culling chickens... remove the virus host, give prophylactic tamiflu (a tamiflu 'blanket') to the surrounding community, and hope you stamped out a pocket of viral mutation, thereby preventing millions of human deaths around the world. This is work that literally goes on every day by international public health people (talk about unsung heroes). Yet, how realistically can you expect people to comply? And if you're talking about applying that strategy to mammals... well, you can't. It's hard enough to ask Indonesians to bury their food supply. And when you add this, it gets even harder.

“We are very worried,” an Indonesian official told Intellectual Property Watch, adding that there is an “unfair mechanism” regarding the sharing of samples of viruses. Some manufacturers will use the samples to develop vaccines, but there is no guarantee that poor developing countries such as Indonesia would be provided with the vaccine, as manufacturers’ production capacity is only 40 million, he said, referring to the more than 6 billion people in the world. There is a “high gap in demand and supply,” he said.

So, if you want some insight into the current negotiations between Indonesia and WHO as to whether there'll be a vaccine developed from a virus that Indonesia provides to the first world, that Indonesians cannot afford to buy for themselves, pet the cat and think about it. In the meantime, Revere at Effect Effect Measure has compiled recent H5N1 headlines in a 24 hour period:

Headlines in the last day: South Korea records seventh outbreak; Bird Flu Strikes Hanoi, Over 1,000 Chickens Culled; Bird flu erupts in Vietnam south; total 5 provinces infected; Bird flu found in 6 more areas of Afghanistan; Laos teenager dies from bird flu; Indonesian Villagers Hide Birds And Spread Flu; Myanmar takes preventive measures against bird flu; Southern China is epicenter of bird flu, U.S. researchers find; Suspicious bird flu deaths in Tehran's Pardisan Park; World experts in Kuwait as more bird flu cases detected; Dubai plans bird flu blood tests at airport -- Report: plan to make 80,000 passengers arriving daily pass through temperature scanners; Ulster tourist tested for killer flu.

H5N1 is a problem that hasn't gone away.

Comments

[emptypockets]

Forgive my ignorance: do many (all?) cultures in southeast Asia keep cats as housepets? Real question being, in bird-flu hotspots does an infected cat live more intimately with humans than an infected chicken (which, if I understand, some families keep their chickens almost like we would keep our cats).

What do you make of those 98 out of 500 cats with H5N1 being (I guess?) alive & kicking?

and, since I don't have a cat to pet while I ponder it, where do the vaccine negotiations with WHO & Indonesia stand? One would note that as political pressure was brought to bear by the experts in the flu community for places like Indonesia to immediately release all their data to CDC & WHO, one of the counterpoints was that that data was the only bargaining chip Indonesia had to ensure they would be able to receive the vaccine those groups would use it for. (Then some cable guy in CT ran for Senate & I lost my H5N1 news feed.) Has the data that was being kept confidential been released, was it done with some guarantee of consideration for the vaccine, and if yes to the first and no to the second then is as much political pressure being brought on those groups to do the right thing now as there was brought on places like Indonesia to release their data in good faith to begin with?

[Mimikatz]

My very limited impression is that cats (and dogs) are semi-wild in communities in SE Asia rather than being pets as we might have. I'm not sure they would be more close to the family than chickens who live under and around the house.

Wasn't much of the research on retroviruses in the early days of AIDS done with feline leukemia? Is there any comparable research avenue here?

[hauksdottir]

Of course cats eat birds!

So do dogs!!

Foxes!!!

Snakes!!!!

Bigger birds!!!!!

And a sick bird oddly flapping around will be targetted by anything looking for an easy meal, even a critter that wouldn't normally be able to catch a bird. Darwinism at work: culling those who can't survive.

More research in order to understand the mutations and what makes which ones lethal is needed, as well as better understanding of all vectors, not just the obvious ones. Meanwhile, we humans will demonize and wantonly kill entire populations out of fear, like the obliteration of cats in the Middle Ages and China's current destruction of dogs. Or displace them onto islands far far away, like the lepers' colonies. Gee, "Indonesian Flu", and they're already on an island?

We can no longer seal off a population, or block a vector. Another solution is needed.

BTW, we humans eat birds, too. So while plans are made to destroy "everything with feathers", and then "everything with fur", perhaps we ought to remember that "everything with hair" is also a category... and killing is not the prescription for living.

[DemFromCT]

the danger of ovewrzealous culling is impoertant. however, doemstic poultry with H5N1 dies anyway (it's very lethal) whereas ducks and cats can be asymptomatic. Some cats die, some do not.

as for exposure, the issue is both that many cats run wild, and are everywhere AND that there mayu be other unknown vectors besides birds. It needs to be examined and not dismissed.

We've said so for a year now.

[John B. Brown]

emptypockets, they don't call them Siamese or Burmese cats for nothing. They are not only pets, they are "family members" just like water buffalo. And then there are pekes and chows. Think about those implications. There are no sure solutions. Do not depend on untested and ineffective solutions like tamiflu. There are some traditional flu cures not developed by chemical medicine purveyors; can't be patented. Grow some ligusticum varieties. The roots work well for flu and pneumonia.

[bird flu]

Yeah I never thought about that. I suppose the virus has the potential to mutate after entering a cats system. Interesting to think about.