Cat Owners Ordered to Keep Pets Indoors

Germany ordered cat owners yesterday to keep their animals indoors to prevent the spread of bird flu among cats. The move followed the announcement that a dead cat found on the Baltic island of Rügen had tested positive for H5N1 - the deadly strain of bird flu.

Gerd Lindemann, Germany's deputy agriculture minister, said the order applied to all cats and dogs within a 1.8 mile (3km) radius of infected bird cases. All cats have to remain indoors, while dogs have to be kept on a leash, he said. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the worst-affected state in the north-east of Germany which includes Rügen, officials said yesterday they would start rounding up stray cats. Till Backhaus, the state agriculture minister, said there would be "no targeted hunting of cats".

But he said that stray cats discovered in affected areas would be caught or "dealt with using other measures", raising the possibility that they could be shot.

The World Health Organisation urged caution yesterday and said there was no reason to believe the virus could be transmitted between cats and humans.

But there was little doubt that bird flu is spreading across Europe. Switzerland reported its second case yesterday from a dead swan. In France, where wild birds and poultry in the south-east have tested positive for H5N1, Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, asked cat owners not to let their pets stray into bird-flu areas. The cat in Rügen was discovered last week by a farmer close to where several dead swans have been found. The farmer was reported yesterday to be under observation by health officials.