Enlarge / Farm cats ingesting from a trough of milk from cows that have been simply milked. (credit score: Getty | )
On March 16, cows on a Texas dairy farm started displaying signs of a mysterious sickness now recognized to be H5N1 chook flu. Their signs have been nondescript, however their milk manufacturing dramatically dropped and turned thick and creamy yellow. The subsequent day, cats on the farm that had consumed a number of the uncooked milk from the sick cows additionally turned ailing. Whereas the cows would go on to largely get better, the cats weren’t so fortunate. They developed depressed psychological states, stiff physique actions, lack of coordination, circling, copious discharge from their eyes and noses, and blindness. By March 20, over half of the farm’s 24 or so cats died from the flu.
In a examine printed right this moment within the journal Rising Infectious Illnesses, researchers in Iowa, Texas, and Kansas discovered that the cats had H5N1 not simply of their lungs but additionally of their brains, hearts, and eyes. The findings are just like these seen in cats that have been experimentally contaminated with H5N1, aka extremely pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI). However, on the Texas dairy farm, they current an ominous warning of the potential for transmission of this harmful and evolving virus.
The contaminated milk was the more than likely supply of the cat’s deadly infections, the examine authors concluded. Though it could possibly’t be solely dominated out that the cats received sick from consuming contaminated wild birds, the milk they drank from the sick cows was brimming with virus particles, and genetic knowledge reveals virtually precise matches between the cows, their milk, and the cats. “Due to this fact, our findings counsel cross-species mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI H5N1 virus and lift new considerations concerning the potential for virus unfold inside mammal populations,” wrote the authors, who’re veterinary researchers from Iowa, Texas, and Kansas.
Learn 5 remaining paragraphs | Feedback
