by Ronnie Dauber

Created on: January 29, 2009   Last Updated: February 19, 2009

Can animals catch the flu? Not only can they catch the flu but they are responsible for it. The flu bug is a virus that originated from animals and has been passed on to humans. Scientifically, it's an anthropo-zoonosis virus, meaning it's highly contagious between certain animals and humans.

We have battled against many flu viruses in the past few decades, with the greatest influenza epidemic being in 1918-19 when what is commonly referred to as the Spanish Flu invaded North America. This plague was caused from pigs in Southern China and spread globally within months. Pigs are highly infectious animals and are hosts to the A-Virus referred to as the Swine Flu.

In 1930, Dr. Richard Shope conducted a study on pigs after it was determined that many were infected with the A-Virus, and his conclusions explained the horrific flu twelve years earlier that claimed over 50 million lives worldwide. He learned that in the overpopulated farmlands of Southern China, farmers raised their pigs and chickens together in the same yard, and not under very hygienic conditions even for animals. The result was the pigs became highly infected with the A-Virus, and since the virus is interchangeable between humans and pigs, the virus travelled quickly outside of their farmlands and across the world through the soldiers.

In the early 1990's, Robert Webster, a renowned flu scientist, continued the extensive study on birds and their exposure or spreading of the flu virus. He concluded that birds, especially chickens, carry their own version of the flu virus and that birds and pigs are able to pass their viruses back and forth to each other, and that pigs and humans could pass their flu viruses back and forth between them, as well. The result was the bird flu, a virus that was deadly but not spread between humans.

Since these discoveries, all farm animals and birds are required to receive regular vaccines to prevent any further exposure to the flu virus. Unfortunately, the virus mutates within its hosts every year providing us with a new and more dangerous version from the last one.

Other animals that are known to be affected by the flu virus are horses. When they are exposed to the flu virus, it is called "Equine Influenza", and can be devastating to them because it not only spreads quickly among herds, but it literally cripples the animals. The America Veterinary Medical Association estimates that 90 percent of horses that have not been vaccinated or previously exposed to the virus can

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