All natural H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infections in domestic cats reported to date appear to have been associated with outbreaks in domestic or wild birds and acquired through ingestion of raw meat likely infected with the H5N1 HPAI virus. Fortunately, there is no evidence to date that domestic cats play a role in the natural transmission cycle of H5N1 HPAI viruses.

There is not enough information available about H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infection in dogs to know how infection would develop. Domestic cats in Europe appear to have become infected by eating infected poultry or wild birds. Details concerning a case of H5N1 infection in a dog in October 2004 were recently published; the dog was infected after it ate the carcass of an infected duck. View the report on the CDC Web site.

You will need to install a good antivirus package such as AVG or update the definitions of your existing software and run a full scan. Also, you might want to visit http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/. just to make sure that your computer is fully updated with the latest security patches.

Mosquitoes bite infected birds and then bite people, injecting the virus into the blood. It can't be passed from person to person or from a bird or other animal to a person.

Anyone can be infected with the hepatitis C virus. However, people most likely to be infected with the hepatitis C virus include individuals who: (1.) had a blood transfusion and or received an organ transplant such as kidney, lung, or heart, before effective screening began in July 1992; (2.) have been or are on long term kidney dialysis (hemodialysis); (3.) received treatment with a clotting factor concentrate manufactured before 1987; (4.) have ever injected illegal drugs, even once; (5.

Good question. It's often nice and helpful to warn others; especially if that is the newsgroup you got it from. But make sure your computer is clean of the virus to avoid posting or sending the virus to others. You don't need to send out a mass warning to everyone on the Internet about the virus. Just stating that file destroyed your computer might prompt someone to avoid the same fate you had. But be clean and calm, though hard to do when hit by a virus.

of the time, computers are infected via email. Also computers can be infected by downloading a file from a web site or program files on a floppy disk.

It depends. If you do not have the feature enabled that allows you to view .html images in your email, you might be safe. Most of the time you actually have to open the attachment in order to activate the virus. You should run your anti-virus software anyway, just to be sure.

you take care of a sick person, take normal precautions to prevent the spread of infection – wash your hands often or use alcohol-based sanitizing gels. Keep the sick person away from people who are healthy and have the sick person over their cough to reduce the spread of disease. If someone is seriously sick, consult with your healthcare provider.

Our limited knowledge on this subject suggests that bison may be infected for extended periods, in some instances years, before developing MCF. More work is needed on this aspect of the disease.

West Nile virus is transmitted by infectious mosquitoes. There is no documented evidence of person-to-person or animal-to-person transmission of West Nile virus. Normal veterinary infection control precautions should be followed when caring for a horse suspected to have this or any viral infection.

by injecting drugs using a needle or syringe which has already been used by someone who is infected. HIV can be passed on in both ways because the virus is present in the sexual fluids and blood of infected people. If infected blood or sexual fluid gets into your blood, then you will become infected. Some people have been infected through a transfusion of infected blood. But in most countries all the blood used for transfusions is now tested for HIV.

The principle route of human infection with West Nile virus is through the bite of an infected mosquito. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds, which may circulate the virus in their blood for a few days. The virus eventually finds its way into the mosquito's salivary glands. During subsequent blood meals, the virus may be injected into humans and animals, where it can multiply and possibly cause illness.

Infected birds shed large numbers of virus in their saliva, nasal secretions and feces. Human illness has resulted from direct contact with birds and their feces or with environments contaminated with infected bird feces. In areas that have had human illness with the H5N1 virus it is fairly common to have chickens roaming free and potentially contaminating the environment. Children who play in a contaminated environment have been at risk of infection.

Although the vast majority of infections have been identified in birds, West Nile virus has been shown to infect horses, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels, and domestic rabbits.

Dogs and cats become infected when bitten by an infected mosquito. There is also evidence that cats can become infected with the virus after eating experimentally infected mice.

Preliminary studies have not been able to detect virus in the saliva of infected dogs. This suggests that dog bites pose a low risk, if any, of transmission of WNV from dogs to other animals or people.

the present time, the risk of becoming infected with H5N1 virus from bird feeders is low. Generally, perching birds (Passeriformes) are the predominate type of birds at feeders. While there are documented cases of H5N1 causing death in some Passeriformes (e.g., house sparrow, Eurasian tree-sparrow, house finch), most of the wild birds that are traditionally associated with avian influenza viruses are waterfowl and shore birds.

Many viruses and worms that are out today harvest addresses from multiple locations. Email address books and websites are two of the most frequent sources. If someone had your email address in his or her address book and his or her machine was infected, it could have been obtained in that way. It could also have been harvested from a website. If a person with an infected computer viewed a web page where your address was listed, it could have been obtained in that manner.

You should alert those in your address book that your computer has been compromised and advise them to check their computer for any presence of a virus or worm.

One method is not to download any files to your computer. However, since this may not be an option, it is suggested to scan downloaded files with a virus scanning program -- such as the Norton or McAfee anti-virus programs. If the virus program discovers a file infected with a virus, you have the option of having the program clean the infected file or to delete the infected file.

Yes. Most virus are contracted through e-mail attachments, however some will copy themselves onto shared folders on your computer. You must have a virus checker installed on your computer and firewall software offers additional security from similar attacks on your computer. The university has a site licensed virus checking software of which more details can be found here.

It is very important to have Anti-Virus software on your computer. If your computer contracts a virus this could lead to email problems, intermittent connection and an array of other problems, including a complete system crash. Sometimes it is not obvious that your computer is infected, instead you might think its a problem with your Internet Service Provider. We recommend you purchase software from companies such as Norton or use a free anti-virus program from AVG.

The best way to prevent viruses from ever getting onto your computer in the first place is to keep and up-to-date anti-virus program on your computer at all times. As new viruses come out, anti-virus programs need to be updated in order to identify these viruses and protect a computer from them. Most anti viruses will automatically update every 24 hours or so, requiring no user interaction, however, it is essential to check and make sure that your anti-virus program is set to do so.

Consult your anti-virus vendor who should be able to point you in the right direction. Most anti-virus vendors have a section dedicated to disinfecting this type of worm. Sophos has one at http://www.sophos.com/support/faqs/worms.html . Once you have disinfected the system you need to work out how and why you were infected and put in mechanisms to stop it happening again. If you need help with any aspect of Anti-virus protection please contact us.

Email is only one of many ways that viruses or worms can infect your system. Virus infections can also occur through files on floppy disks, malicious scripts embedded in web pages, newsgroup messages with file attachments, and other sources. While this valuable service is free to you as an ASME member, it is not intended as a substitute for having regularly updated anti-virus software on your home or corporate computer.

No procedure is yet explictly worked out. But presumably, unless you have extended support, your computer will be barred from IP access until you yourself have reinstalled your operating system.