WHO: Risks unknown after German cat catches H5N1 bird flu
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-03-02 10:48

The World Health Organization said the threat to people is unknown but appears small after H5N1 bird flu infected a German cat, heightening fears of a future human pandemic.

Signs indicate the way to the site where a dead cat was infected with the bird flu virus on the Baltic island of Ruegen, northeastern Germany. The World Health Organization said the threat to people is unknown but appears small after H5N1 bird flu infected a German cat, heightening fears of a future human pandemic. [AFP]

"We don't know," said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson when asked about the risks of the disease spreading from cats to humans. "Is it significant? That's impossible to tell at this time, but it doesn't appear so."

The cat in Germany was the first mammal in Europe known to be infected with H5N1. Other felines including tigers, leopards and domestic cats have caught the disease in Asia.

Tests due later in the day were expected to confirm that the German cat -- found on the Baltic island of Ruegen where H5N1 was detected in birds earlier this month -- had the highly pathogenic form of the H5N1 virus.

A bird flu crisis team was to meet Wednesday to discuss measures against the deadliest form of the virus, now confirmed in wild birds in three of Germany's 16 states.

The H5N1 virus has so far shown no ability to spread from human to human. More than 90 people have been killed by the disease since 2003 but all are believed to have been infected by contact with birds.

The big fear is that H5N1 may mix with human forms of influenza and mutate into a form that can pass between humans, launching a pandemic that could kill millions.

"This is a virus that isn't acting in a predictable way. It's unusual that cats would be infected at all. The range of hosts here is unusual for an avian virus," Thompson said.