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Although H5N1 avian flu has caused many people to look at migrating birds and domestic poultry in a new, menacing light, it may be time to reappraise the bewhiskered feline serenely licking her paws on your couch.

Danish and Italian researchers are calling on the world's health organizations and experts to start taking notice of cats. And they're urging officials to consider these domestic animals as both potential threats to human safety and as possible sentinels for the arrival of the disease.

"We believe that the potential role of cats should be considered in official guidelines for controlling the spread of H5N1 virus infection," wrote the authors in a commentary in today's issue of the journal Nature.

But others say too little is yet known about these animals' role in the spread of the virus. And in North America, where avian flu has not appeared, there is little cause for alarm.

"We believe at the present time a general survey of cats and other carnivores, certainly in North America, and even in H5N1- endemic regions, may not be generally warranted, as the exposure of the cats to infected birds is likely to be low," said Hon Ip, director of the diagnostic virology laboratory at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.

But, he said, if cats begin "showing unusual morbidity or mortality" in areas infected by the virus, that stance might have to be reconsidered.

According to the authors, cats have been relatively silent victims in the spread of the flu. As early as February 2004, reports of domestic cats dying from H5N1 started to appear. In a household near Bangkok, Thailand, 14 out of 15 cats "became weak, started vomiting and coughed up blood before dying."

Tigers and a leopard in two zoos in Thailand also have died after eating fresh chicken carcasses infected with the virus or being exposed to birds with H5N1.

"These reports were surprising because both domestic cats and wild felids were considered to be resistant to disease from influenza A virus infection, of which H5N1 is a subtype," wrote the researchers, who include Thijs Kuiken and Albert Osterhaus, virologists at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, as well as Peter Roeder of the Animal Production and Health Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Italy.

Widespread and high mortality of cats has been reported in areas where the disease has become endemic, including Iraq and Indonesia.

# posted by Medical Information : 4:18 AM