World Health: Pandemics: Bird flu jumps species to kill cat on German island

The threat of pandemic from a flu carried by birds both wild and domestic fowl has inched another step deeper into the danger zone, the BBC reports from the German island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea:

A domestic cat in Germany has become the first European Union mammal to die of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

The cat was found dead at the weekend on the Baltic island of Ruegen, where dozens of birds infected with H5N1 have been found.

Further north, Sweden has detected "aggressive" bird flu in two wild ducks and is testing to confirm H5N1.

Meanwhile, vets from 50 countries have been meeting in Paris for a second day to discuss ways to combat the virus.

I wish I could get every reasonably literate person to read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Socieities to gain insight into how diseases jump around among various animal species spread under certain conditions, and in time can and have thruout history jumped to the human species. A sense of history on the matter and the basic science that goes with it, can't hurt. I do rate the book triple EEE for evolutionistic, but informed non-(evolution)istic thinkers can read past that obsession of dear Dr Diamond. Again, the "-istic" ending is meaning-laden, and every person who understands that Creation-Fall-Redemption takes priority over evolution in Christian theorizing worth its salt, will have no trouble gleaning the powerful insights and moments of truth in Diamond's reconstruction. - Owlb