more evidence shows covid-19 may have human-to-cat transmission.
in a new study published in the
journal
emerging infectious diseases,
hong kong researchers collected viral rna and fecal samples from 50 cats who lived in close quarters with people who had confirmed covid-19 cases. between february and august, they found six cases of human to feline transmission. all of the cats were healthy and in one case, the virus genome between one cat and its owner were identical.
in the first case, a seven-year-old female domestic shorthair cat lived in a home with three covid-positive people. on march 20, 29, and 30, the cat owners experienced symptoms like fever, cough, and shortness of breath. their cat was examined by a veterinarian on march 30 and reported healthy, but sars-cov-2 rna was found present in the nasal, oral, and rectal swabs that day.
researchers attempted to grow viruses from the cat’s swabs but were unsuccessful. they continued to find viruses the cat’s nose and mouth, but none of the rectal swabs produced viruses after the first day.
it’s not the first time cats have been connected to covid-19.
in may, researchers from china published data that found
cats and ferrets are susceptible to infection
(dogs, chickens, pigs, and ducks, however, were not). in a lab experiment, researchers from the university of wisconsin-madison and the university of tokyo found
cats could catch covid-19 from other cats
. researchers inoculated three cats with sars-cov-2 and placed three uninfected cats with them, one in each cage with an infected cat. five days later, all three uninfected cats were infected.
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