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University of Nebraska Medical Center

Bird Flu Cases May be Spreading From Cat Owners to Their Pets

Newsweek Internal emails reveal Michigan health officials suspected that owners may have inadvertently spread bird flu to their household cats, raising new concerns about transmission patterns of the virus.

“If we only could have gotten testing on the [REDACTED] household members, their clothing if possible, and their workplaces, we may have been able to prove human-to-cat transmission,” officials wrote in a July 22 email obtained by KFF Health News.

Another email urged publishing a report “to inform others about the potential for indirect transmission to companion animals.”

The emails were obtained via record requests and document the ongoing struggle to track cases of the H5N1 virus in cats. They suggest that domestic cats may become infected from droplets known as fomites on their owners’ persons.

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