Friday, June 30, 2006
Bird flu infects zoo cats in Thailand
A leopard has died from avian influenza at a zoo in eastern Thailand while a tiger there has survived infection by the deadly virus which is thought to have come from chickens fed to the cats, a zoo official said Monday.
Laboratory tests conducted at Kasetsart University confirmed that the clouded leopard that died Jan. 27 at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chon Buri Province was infected by the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus, the zoo's chief veterinarian said.
A white tiger was also infected with the same viral strain but has survived after receiving medication, according to the veterinarian.
He said the wild cats must have caught the virus from infected chickens that the zoo fed the animals before the government admitted on Jan. 23 that bird flu had broken out in the kingdom.
''There has been no other risk factor in the zoo except the food. We have stopped feeding chickens to our animals and since then we have found no other case of infection. Our birds have been examined and they are all fine,'' the veterinarian said.
He said five random samplings collected from wild cats and another 37 random samplings from birds, both those kept in cages and those living freely in the zii, tested negative for H5N1.
He said the 10-year-old clouded leopard could not survive the infection due to its age and because it had already been suffering from heart and liver ailments.
The zoo still has other 16 clouded leopards, an endangered species in Southeast Asia.
Khao Kheow Open Zoo has been closed down since Jan. 30 together with another zoo in Bangkok.
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