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by RubyDoobyDoo on November 19th, 2009

RubyDoobyDoo

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Are pets susceptible to H1N1/swine flu?

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Answers. 2 helpful answers below.

  • by Slightly less anonymous on November 20th, 2009

    Slightly less anonymous

    Yes. And it was in the NYTimes and a lot of other places. Why? Because it's SO unusual.

    It's not that cats and dogs can't contract the flu, it's that they don't get "human" flu. "Although some household cats and certain wild cats in zoos have gotten ill with avian influenza, and dogs have their own canine version of the flu virus, pets don't normally get sick with the regular human flu. Before this, there had never been a report of human seasonal influenza affecting cats or dogs. Ever.

    And it wasn't expected either--we're past flu season in parts of the world and well into it in others, and so far only swine and ferrets, which are particularly susceptible to the flu, had become infected with H1N1.

    By now, a total of three cats have been infected, and 1 has died. The first two links are links to the NYTimes blog article and the Time article dated when the first cat was diagnosed. The last link is a USAToday article about the third cat, which was confirmed dead Nov 18th.

    It's still very rare for most pets to get the flu from humans (unless you have ferrets). And it doesn't go the other way, pets aren't getting humans sick. But when sick, be careful not just around other humans, but around your pets too. There's good advice in the articles about keeping your pet from getting sick, especially in the last, but it's not something you have to really worry about.


    http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/the-cat-who-got-swine-flu/

    http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1934826,00.html

    http://content.usatoday.com/communities/pawprintpost/post/2009/11/oregon-cat-first-to-die-from-h1n1/1

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  • by Kingpinn on November 19th, 2009

    Kingpinn

    Yes. I read that cats can get this flu.

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