The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be requiring manufacturers of cat and dog food who use raw ingredients derived from poultry or cattle to reanalyze their food safety plans to include Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza virus (specifically H5N1) as a known or reasonably foreseeable hazard.
This move comes on the heels of reports of bird flu transmistted to domestic and wild cats in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington State through the ingestion of contaminated raw food.
Cats are especially susceptible to the H5N1 (bird flu) virus, and can experience severe illness, sometimes resulting in death. Dogs also can contract an infection, but are far less likely to suffer severe illness.
By its action, the FDA is encouraging manufacturers to adopt a preventive control to protect animal health and stop the spread of the H5N1 virus. Preventive controls may include a processing step to inactivate the virus, or a supply-chain control that would restrict the sourcing of ingredients to poultry flocks and cattle herds that are not infected with the H5N1 virus.
To assist manufacturers in reviewing their food safety plans and developing preventive control steps for their at-risk products, the FDA included in its annoucement a summary of scientific literature covering (1) the prevalence of H5N1 in cattle and poultry and their animal-derived ingredients, (2) the severity of H5N1 illness or injury in cats and dogs, and (3) the impact of processing steps on inactivating H5N1.
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