Cats around the Texas dairy farm were infected by the bird flu virus and suffered blindness and death after drinking raw milk from bird flu-infected cows.

The report was published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal on Tuesday. The CDC reported the outbreak of H5N1 bird flu among the cats.

The cats at the Texas farm had consumed the raw milk from sick cows and were infected with a highly pathogenic variant of the avian influenza virus (HPAI). The cows on the Texas dairy farm started exhibiting symptoms of a strange sickness on March 16. The symptoms of the cows were undistinguished, their milk production stopped unusually, and the milk turned thick and creamy yellow.

The cats around the farm consumed the raw milk from the sick cows and became sick. The cats showed symptoms including stiffness, depressed mental state, blindness, loss of coordination, circling, and excessive discharge of mucus, and by March 20, more than half of the infected cats had died from the flu virus.

The necropsy reports of the deceased animals showed that the virus had aggressively spread to multiple organs, including the eyes, lungs, heart, and brain. The autopsies of the cats also uncovered microscopic lesions consistent with a severe systemic virus infection.

The CDC performed additional examinations on two deceased cats and milk samples from the farms' cows. The results confirmed the presence of the 2.3.4.4b strain of H5N1 virus. This strain is a highly pathogenic variant of avian influenza, and the same strain is accountable for the recent death of a dolphin in Florida. The CDC also noticed abnormal signs in the cows, including the presence of tiny lesions in their mammary glands and the production of normal milk before they died of the infection.

The veterinary researchers from Iowa, Texas, and Kansas wrote in their study, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, that their findings suggest cross-species mammal-to-mammal transmission of the HPAI H5N1 virus and elevate new anxieties regarding the possible virus spread within mammal populations.

The CDC said that while it's unlikely that people would become infected with bird flu viruses through contact with an infected animal, it is possible, particularly if there is prolonged and unprotected exposure to the animal. Earlier this year two confirmed cases of human infection with avian influenza A reported in Cambodia. A Texas dairy farmer also contracted a mild form of bird flu virus. He is the second human infection in the country. The CDC notified us that the infected dairy farmer is isolated and recuperating, and as a symptom, he has only eye inflammation.

The H5N1 infection spreads among cattle and chickens across the US. The infection affected animals on 29 farms in 8 states.

(Input from various media sources) 

(Rehash/Lavanya Beeraboina/SB)