VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Several cats have tested positive for the deadly strain of bird flu in Austria's first reported case of the disease spreading to an animal other than a bird, state authorities said Monday. Two or three cats, all of which are still alive, have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease, Hans Seitinger, the top agriculture official in the southern state of Styria, told state broadcaster ORF.
German authorities last month confirmed that a cat on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen had succumbed to the deadly virus, which it is believed to have caught by eating an infected bird.
That would be consistent with a pattern of disease transmission seen in wild cats in Asia.
German officials have warned pet owners to keep their cats indoors and dogs on a leash in areas where the disease has been detected
Austria confirmed the nation's first case of H5N1 in a wild bird last month and has since detected several dozen cases in birds, including 29 in Styria alone.
Some of those cases were in chickens taken to an abandoned animal shelter near Graz, the capital of Styria. The shelter also houses cats. It was not immediately clear if the sick cats came from the shelter.
According to the World Health Organization, several tigers and snow leopards in a zoo and several house cats were infected with H5N1 during outbreaks in Asia in 2003 and 2004.
According to the latest World Health Organization figures, the H5N1 strain has killed at least 94 people since 2003, mostly in Asia, and devastated poultry stocks. Scientists are concerned that the virus could mutate into a form easily spread between people, sparking a pandemic.
