Germany has told people in areas where avian influenza has been found to keep domestic pets under strict control to avoid spreading the virus to other species. This is despite advice that cats are not a “real danger.”
The German government took the action after the discovery of a cat that died after eating birds infected with the H5N1 strain of the virus on the island of Rügen.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Agriculture in Berlin, Tanja Thiele, said, “All domestic cats within a 3 km radius of a site of bird flu infection are not allowed to leave the house. Dogs can only be outside when on a lead, to prevent them eating the corpses of infected birds.
“So far we have only seen one case of the virus crossing over to cats, and that was in Rügen, the only area in Germany classified as ‘highly infected.' We think that that particular cat must have eaten a large amount of infected birds to become sick, as we tested many other cats in the area and they were all clean.”
She added: “Of course, we have to be careful, but we do not see a real danger from the virus being transmitted this way.”
A cat died after eating infected birds in Austria, just over a week after the case on Rügen. The discovery of the H5N1 infected cat was announced this week by Hans Seitinger, the local agricultural councillor for the province of Styria. Mr Seitinger explained that “two or three” other cats had tested positive for the virus but were still alive.
The virus has already been confirmed in wild birds in six states across Germany. But Susanne Glasmacher, a biologist and spokeswoman for the Robert Koch Institute, the government agency charged with controlling infectious outbreaks, said the discovery of the dead cat had not raised their level of concern.
“We are no more worried than before. It was already clear, thanks to the Dutch virologist Albert Osterhaus’s experiments, that cats can contract this disease. We do not think this case in Rügen makes it more likely that bird flu will spread to humans,” she said.
Susanne Glasmacher believes that Germany is still in a much better position than countries in less developed parts of the world with the virus. She said, “In Asia there is a much more problematic situation. There are more wild birds, and unlike in Germany they have experienced a number of outbreaks in poultry. As there is such close contact between humans and poultry in that part of the word it is much more dangerous.”
The Robert Koch Institute believes that the situation in Germany needs to develop radically for a major risk to humans to emerge. “The next so called dangerous step would be for the disease to spread to poultry, but that should not happen, as all our farm birds are being kept indoors. Even if that happened we would still find it easier to contain than in Asia,” said Ms Glasmacher.
But others in Germany feel the government is not doing enough to counter the threat of cross contamination.
Wilhelm Hoffrogge, head of Lower Saxony’s Poultry Association, told the German press that he believes cats pose a major threat.
“Free roaming cats could spread bird flu further. I’m calling for the general confinement of domestic cats and the shooting of cats spotted in the wild. It’s simply not responsible to let them wander around,” he said.
But Astrid Funke, head of the Federal Association for the Protection for Animals, called Mr Hoffrogge’s comments an “outbreak of temporary hysteria.”
Since the discovery of the infected cat in Rügen a number of prominent Germans, including a Green party politician, have called for the upcoming football World Cup matches to be cancelled.
Bärbel Höhn, the leader of the parliamentary committee for agriculture, said: “The virus is here, and we have a giant sports event on our hands. I would be tempted to say let us be cautious and call it off.”