Two of Four Cats with Bird Flu in One California Household Survived After Early Antiviral Treatment (medicaldaily.com)

Highly pathogenic H5N1 is close to a death sentence in domestic cats. Infected animals typically develop severe respiratory and neurologic disease, and published case reports across multiple countries end the same way. A case series from Tulare County, California, documents a partial exception. Four cats in a single household, living within about a mile of a dairy farm at the center of California's H5N1 cattle outbreaks, became infected between late October and mid-November 2024. Two died. The two who received early supportive care and the antiviral oseltamivir recovered. The report, published in the journal One Health after circulating as a preprint, is unusual not because cats caught bird flu but because two of them lived. An Outbreak Inside a House The household sat near a dairy farm in Tulare, which the authors describe as the epicenter of California's H5N1 outbreaks in dairy cattle. The cat owner delivered hay to local dairies. The first cat died suddenly at a local veterinary clinic after developing breathing problems. The second died within days at a different clinic despite fluids and antibiotics. Neither received antiviral treatment before death, and neither was tested for H5N1 at the time. The clinical picture in one of the...