Four European countries today imposed restrictions on the movements of cats after a dead cat in Germany was discovered to have been infected with bird flu.

The dead animal was found yesterday on the Baltic island of Ruegen, where more than 100 wild birds have died of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus. Experts say that the cat probably fell ill after eating an infected bird.

As experts in many European countries took to the airwaves to offer advice to animal owners, alarmed that they might catch the human form of the virus from their pets, the German Government announced that all cats must be kept indoors in bird flu-affected zones. In addition, dogs must be kept on leashes, and all animals watched for signs of strange behaviour.

"Cats must be kept away from infected birds ... and in protection zones, cats should be kept in houses," Till Backhaus, agriculture minister in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, told a news conference.

"It is important that pet owners keep a close eye on their animals for symptoms of a cold, diarrhoea, abnormal fatigue, fever, and if these signs emerge a veterinarian should be contacted."

The German Agriculture Ministry said in a statement that a federal crisis group set up to deal with the bird flu outbreaks had decided against vaccination of house cats.

France, which has also suffered several outbreaks of bird flu in wild and domestic birds, followed suit in imposing cat exclusion zones. Dominique de Villepin, the French Prime Minister, said today: "Adhering to the principle of precaution, cat owners are asked not to let them stray in zones where the H5N1 virus has been detected."

Elsewhere in Europe, Italy has declared affected areas off limits to cats and dogs, while neighbouring Slovenia told people to keep cats indoors where bird flu has been found.

Humans can contract the virus through direct contact with sick or infected birds. However, there are fears the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person, sparking a pandemic in which millions could die.

The World Health Organisation attempted to calm fears that the progress of the disease into cats could be a staging post towards human infections.

"To date, no human case has been linked to exposure to a diseased cat," the WHO said in a statement. "Unlike the case in domestic and wild birds, there is no evidence that domestic cats are a reservoir of the virus."

The dead cat was discovered on Ruegen, an island in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern that lies just off Germany’s north coast, where the virus was first identified in wild birds last month.

Germany’s Federal Research Institute for Animal Health is conducting tests to see whether the virus is the deadly strain which has led to sickness and fatalities among humans in Turkey and East Asia.

There are an estimated 7.5 million cats living in German households.

"It’s understandable that people are concerned," Michael Schmidt, a professor of veterinary medicine at Berlin’s Free University, told Reuters.

"In general, people should behave normally with their cats. But in the areas that have been cordoned off, if you have cats that roam free but also come indoors, then I would perhaps refrain from really intensive cuddling for a while."

Georg Mettenleiter, a professor at Germany’s institute for animal health in northern Germany, said he could not completely exclude humans catching the virus from cats but said there was no precedent for this anywhere in the world.

"However, it is true that cats can infect each other," Herr Mettenleiter said on German radio. "Whether there would be enough of the virus, theoretically, to infect a person is not known."

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