BRITAIN’S 13 million cat and dog owners were urged to stay calm yesterday after news that a cat in Germany had become the first in a species other than birds to get infected by H5N1 flu virus in Europe.

Vets are determined to quell any panic that families might be at greater risk of catching the deadly flu virus from owning a pet.

Dr Freda Scott-Park, the president of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), urged owners to be sensible. “What we are trying to avoid is people going around to their vets asking for their pets to be put down because they might get bird flu,” she said. A number of people have asked vets to put down pet chickens and geese, fearing that they could infect their families.

The Government also moved to prevent any alarm. A spokesman at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “There is no need for cat owners to introduce precautionary measures.” He added that the reports from Germany were “of interest” but said that government experts could not assess their significance until the authorities there provided more details.

Tests are continuing to determine if the domestic cat died from the deadly strain of the virus. It is thought that it caught the virus from eating an infected dead bird on the Baltic island of Rügen, where most of the 100 infected wild birds in Germany have been found. Contamination may also have occurred by the cat’s contact with bird faeces.

Despite the British Government’s advice, scientists in Holland yesterday did not rule out the possibility that the virus could spread to human beings via cats. In a further development, wild ducks suspected of having the virus were found in southern Sweden. If confirmed, it will be the ninth country in Europe with the disease.

British vets have been on alert about the risk to cats and dogs of the H5N1 strain, but there is no evidence that cats or dogs can pass it to humans.

All cats and dogs previously found with the virus have been infected by eating wild birds or poultry. Nevertheless, vets have been told to investigate cases where animals are finding it difficult to breathe.

Dr Scott-Park said: “Basically H5N1 wants to live in birds, it doesn’t really want to live in other species.”

She also played down concerns that people may become infected from a pet and said: “As far as I know there is no evidence of cats being the mixing vessel. We recognise that pigs have been the mixing vessel with previous avian viruses and it would be the transfer to pigs that we would be much more worried about.”

Peter Jinman, a former BVA president, said: “People must get this into perspective. So far there is not one wild bird or chicken that has been found with the virus in the country.”

The first known infection of cats with bird flu came in 2004 when more than 20 tigers and a leopard died after being fed infected poultry. Several domestic cats were also infected. A study at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam demonstrated not only that cats could contract avian flu from birds, but also that they could pass it on between themselves. But Andrew Cunningham, a wildlife epidemiologist at the Zoological Society for London, said: “Very intimate content is required for that to happen.”

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