Two house cats in separate New York City households were infected with the bird flu virus as outbreaks of the disease continue to pop up around the country, the city health department said Friday.
Officials said they were still investigating how the cats caught the virus, and did not disclose the animals' condition. They urged New Yorkers not to feed their pets raw food or raw milk and to avoid letting them roam outside where they could encounter wild birds or other animals.
The risk that bird flu presents to New Yorkers remains low, the health department said. Human-to-human transmission of the avian influenza virus remains extremely rare and has not occurred during the current outbreak in the United States, which began in 2022.
But it is possible for someone to contract bird flu from an animal if they come into contact with the animal’s organs, blood or other bodily fluids, including milk, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2022, 70 people have been infected with the virus in the U.S. and one has died, according to the CDC.
During the current outbreak, bird flu has been detected in 48 flocks of birds across New York state. Seven of those detections occurred in live poultry markets in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island in March alone, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
Those infections were reported after Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered several live poultry markets in New York City to shut down temporarily last month, following several previous detections.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says a range of animals in upstate New York have also caught the virus since 2022, including wild dogs and cats, a skunk and an opossum.
