What affects us affects cats
The Black Death — the mid-14th-century pandemic that killed perhaps 30–60 % of Europe’s population — is among the most devastating tragedies in human history. For decades, popular memory and many historical accounts depicted it as a tale of black rats, fleas, and filth: rats infested medieval towns, fleas carrying the plague bacterium jumped …
2025 – A new and worrying development in the ongoing global battle against avian influenza has emerged in the United States, where a domestic cat was euthanised after contracting the H5N1 bird-flu virus. The source of infection, investigators say, was contaminated raw cat food — a reminder of the hidden dangers in feeding pets …
Introduction In early 2025, several U.S. pet food companies initiated recalls of raw cat food products due to concerns over contamination with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1, commonly known as bird flu. These recalls were prompted by confirmed cases of the virus in domestic cats, some of which resulted in fatalities. The incidents …
There is a recent story in the online news media of 20 ‘big cats’ (not all are classic big cats as the list includes four bobcats, one lynx and four pumas) contracting bird flu (H5N1) and dying. It is the biggest outbreak of bird flu in a cat zoo that I have read about. …
Could pet cats or dogs trigger an avian influenza pandemic? by Michael Broad In answering the question in the title, the first box to tick is on the issue as to whether avian flu is a zoonosis by which I mean can it be transferred from animals to people and between species of animal? …
List of some notable zoonotic diseases that can be carried by domestic cats in an Infographic by Michael Broad It is my personal belief that for some people there is an irrational fear of zoonotic diseases affecting cats. Or there are people who have an anti-cat agenda because they are predators killing native species …
Well, I have summarized some information about the possible transmission of bird flu to domestic cats in an infographic as I think it is a nice way to present this kind of info. A point worth making, I believe, is that a lot has been written about bird flu (H5N1) on the internet and …
Mpox is a global emergency and my research indicates that it is a zoonosis (zoonotic disease) which means it can be transferred between animals and people (and vice versa) and further, it seems entirely possible that pets can carry the disease. The point here is that it seems possible that domestic cats can transfer …
