South Korea's agriculture ministry said Wednesday it has detected an H5 avian influenza (AI) strain in cat food, and ordered its manufacturer to recall and destroy the affected products.
Last month, a cat living at a shelter in Seoul's Gwanak district died after showing respiratory symptoms, and it was found Monday to have been infected with a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza strain, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
Follow-up tests on the facility showed that the H5 virus was detected in cat food used there, and its manufacturer, Nature's Raw, in the city of Gimpo, west of Seoul, had failed to abide by due sterilization procedures, the ministry said.
Whether the virus from the cat food is highly pathogenic will be determined in about two days.
"The company had not fully followed necessary sterilization steps over the course of manufacturing products since May 25. The government ordered the company to stop producing and selling the items, and to recall and destroy them," the ministry said in a release.
The company skipped the sterilization process due to the breakdown of its equipment, a ministry official said.
In the wake of the case, the ministry decided to launch an inspection into all manufacturers of animal food using chicken, duck and other meats.
Concerns have grown over the spread of avian influenza among cats and other animals, as the country reported AI cases in two cats at a shelter in Seoul's Yongsan Ward last week, marking the first infections of the virus in mammals since 2016.
Officials said four additional cases have been confirmed among cats in the two shelters, bringing the total caseload among cats to seven.
People who have had contact with the cats in the Gwanak and Yongsan shelters have not shown any symptoms, and there has not been a human AI infection through cats or other mammals.
But the health authorities are closely monitoring them, as the incubation period for human AI cases is known to be 10 days.
Contact tracing is under way, and the authorities are conducting virus tests on street cats in Seoul.
Chances seem low for the cats to be infected with the virus through poultry animals, as extensive tests, involving more than 40,000 samples from poultry farms and wild habitats and conducted in May and June, found no suspected or confirmed cases.
The authorities are also grappling with how to deal with infected cats.
In accordance with related regulations, animals infected with the avian influenza are supposed to be culled, but it is not easy to force cat owners to administer mercy killing.
"We are reviewing an option of setting up facilities to isolate infected pets and treat them," the official said.
According to government data, South Koreans raised 2.54 million cats as pets in 2022.
Source: Yonhap News Agency