Excerpt:
It’s been nearly two weeks since the first reports of sick and dying cats in Poland began to emerge - and while initially it was assumed that cats were coming in contact with the virus from predation of birds, or from environmental exposures - we’ve seen reports of indoor cats from several cities testing positive as well.
Yesterday’s announcement (see Poland’s National Veterinary Institute Genome Sequence Analysis Of H5N1 Viruses Detected In Cats), stated early testing has suggested that the feline H5N1 avian influenza viruses analyzed so far originate from a single, unidentified source.
While there may be more than one route of infection, with dozens of indoor and outdoor cats affected, H5N1 contamination from raw poultry has to be considered. For the past 20 years we’ve seen multiple outbreaks in zoos around the world which have fed large cats (tigers, lions, etc.) contaminated raw poultry.