Céline Geraud, edited by Maxime Asseo 9:57 a.m., January 30, 2023
Last week, a domestic cat had to be euthanized in Deux-Sèvres after being infected with bird flu while living next to a duck farm decimated by the virus.
This is the first time that such contamination between birds and a mammal has been observed in France.
It had never happened in France.
A cat who lived with a family in Deux-Sèvres, next to a duck farm affected by bird flu, was infected with the virus last week.
The case of this feline which had to be euthanized raises the question of a possible transmission to humans because the example of the cat proves that the H5N1 virus has mutated to adapt to mammals.
Even if the case remains exceptional, it requires the greatest vigilance: the multiplication of contaminations between species could facilitate the spread to humans.
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Possibility of adaptation and contagiousness to humans
"We don't have to fear like that a species barrier jump directly from birds to humans", reassures Gilles Salvat, deputy director general of the research and reference center at the National Food Safety Agency. , the environment and labor (ANSES).
“On the other hand, if the virus infects, for example, pigs, an animal often close to humans and birds, we cannot exclude that it becomes pathogenic for humans and that it adapts to humans. and become contagious."
Initial blood tests on the cat's owners and the vet all came back negative.
However, additional epidemiological investigations are still in progress to ensure that there has been no human-to-human transmission in the environment.
Regarding the virus in poultry, 4,600,000 animals have been slaughtered in France since the start of the avian flu episode on August 1, 2022.