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An Oregon cat died after eating pet food that had tested positive for bird flu, prompting a recall of raw frozen pet food sold across the country, state officials said.
Portland, Oregon-based pet food company Northwest Naturals announced Tuesday that it is voluntarily recalling a batch of its 2-pound Cat Turkey Recipe raw frozen pet food after testing positive for the virus. This product was sold through distributors in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and British Columbia, Canada.
“We believe this cat contracted H5N1 from eating raw and frozen Northwest Naturals pet food,” Dr. Ryan Scholz, a veterinarian with the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said in a news release Tuesday. “This cat was strictly an indoor cat, had no exposure to the virus in the environment, and genome sequencing showed an exact match between the virus recovered from raw pet food and the infected cat. Confirmed.”
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The recalled products are packaged in 2-pound plastic bags with “use by” dates of May 21, 2026 and June 23, 2026. The company and Oregon authorities said consumers who purchased the recalled products should immediately throw them away. Please contact the store of purchase for a refund.
Oregon officials said that while no humans have been infected with bird flu, people who came into contact with the cats are being monitored for flu symptoms.
More than 60 people in eight states have been infected, most with mild symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health officials announced last week that a person in Louisiana was hospitalized with severe symptoms from the virus, the first in the country.
So far, the CDC has confirmed one human case of avian influenza in Oregon. The person was linked to a previously reported outbreak at a poultry farm and experienced mild symptoms before making a full recovery, according to a November news release from the Oregon Health Authority.
In late October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that pigs at a backyard farm in Oregon were found to be infected with avian influenza, marking the first time avian influenza has been detected in pigs in the United States.
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