GERMAN officials have found a dead cat infected with a form of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health said today.
The institute said it was still conducting tests to see whether the virus was the deadly strain which has led to sickness and fatalities among humans in Turkey and Asia.
It said the cat was found at the weekend on the island of Ruegen off Germany's northern coast, the same location where the virus was first identified in birds earlier this month.
The finding may increase concern that the virus could spread to other species in Europe as it has in a number of cases in other parts of the world.
"It has been known for some time that cats can become infected by eating infected birds," Thomas Mettenleiter, the institute's president said in a statement.
A number of big cats in Asian zoos have died after being fed with infected birds and domestic cats have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to the disease, the institute said.
However, it said that there had so far been no known case of a human becoming infected by a cat.
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