Old Cat Gossip

A few days after two members of a family in Iowa (USA) came down with the flu, they noticed their 13-year-old cat wasn’t feeling too well either. The cat has since become the first documented case of a feline with the new H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu.

The unusual case has riveted pet owners and health officials. Companion animals have been known to contract flu from other species — canine influenza (H3N8) originated in horses, and cats contract avian influenza (H5N1) from eating birds. But this appears to be the first time a cat has contracted influenza from a human. Two pet ferrets, one in Oregon and one in Nebraska, have also tested positive for H1N1, and the virus has also been transmitted between humans and pigs.

The cat was treated at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University by veterinarians Dr. Brett A. Sponseller and Dr. Albert Jergens. Although the family has asked not to be identified, Drs. Sponseller and Jergens have disclosed additional details about the case.

The cat, a 16-pound orange tabby, began acting lethargic and lost his appetite on Oct. 27. He is the only pet in the house and never goes outside. The cat, described as “large framed but not chubby,” stopped eating and drinking and stopped cleaning himself. He also rested by hunching on all four feet, rather than sprawling out on his side as usual, a sign of respiratory discomfort. A few days earlier, two out of three family members in the home had developed flu-like symptoms, with fever and body aches.

Although cats can contract flu from birds, this cat never left the house and was never exposed to any other pet. At that point, it occurred to the veterinarians that since the family members had been recently ill, they might be seeing a case of flu transmitted from human to cat. The school is the site of a major diagnostic lab, so the veterinarians were able to test the cat and quickly confirm he had H1N1, a finding that was later confirmed by additional testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Additional testing is being conducted to confirm that the family members had H1N1 and to try to verify that the flu was transmitted from human to cat. However, the circumstantial evidence is strong that the cat was infected by its owners and not the other way around.

The cat is about 85 percent recovered.