Raw pet food linked to fatal H5N1 infection in cat: Oregon, US

The Oregon Department of Health has issued a warning to pet owners about contaminated raw pet food. H5N1 avian influenza has been found in turkey-based raw (and frozen raw) pet food from Morasch Meats. Testing was performed after the death of an indoor cat from H5N1 flu in Washington County, Oregon, and there was a genetic match between the food and virus from the infected cat, making it a solid link. The company is voluntarily recalling some of their Northwest Naturals diets.

This highlights the risks posed by poultry-based raw pet food. There may also be risk from beef based diets in the US, where H5N1 is present in dairy cattle. Risks could also extend to other raw pet food formulations because of cross-contamination.

There are no health benefits to raw diets and H5N1 is yet another potential threat to animals fed raw diets. That risk would extend to owners as well, through exposure to virus from handling food and potentially from infected cats (we still don’t know the cat-human transmission risks).

We have seen foodborne H5N1 infection of cats in multiple situations, often resulting in fatal disease. Foodborne disease probably helps explain some of the earlier reports of H5N1 in indoor cats, and in that respect it’s a good thing because we want to know how all infections are occurring. The more we can’t explain, the more we worry about serious issues like unknown human (owner) infections with subsequent human-cat transmission. I’d much rather be able to attribute cases to logical food-associated disease that have to explore other infection pathways or think that there may be silent human-associated spread.

The mitigation approach here is simple: just avoid raw diets, especially poultry-based diets.