A study has found that COVID-19 is common in pet cats and dogs
pharmafile | July 1, 2021 | News story | |Â Â Â
A study has found that COVID-19 is common in pet cats and dogs whose owners have the disease.
Samples were taken from 310 pets across 196 households where owners had tested positive for COVID.
Six cats and seven dogs returned a positive PCR result, while 54 animals tested positive for virus antibodies, most pets were asymptomatic or displayed mild symptoms.
The authors of the study said no evidence of pet-to-owner transmission had been recorded to date but it would be difficult to detect while the virus was still spreading easily between humans.
As reported in the BBC, Dr Els Broens, from Utrecht University, said: “If you have COVID, you should avoid contact with your cat or dog, just as you would do with other people.
“The main concern is not the animals’ health but the potential risk that pets could act as a reservoir of the virus and reintroduce it into the human population.”
Follow-up tests showed all the PCR-positive (polymerase chain reaction) animals cleared the infection and went on to develop antibodies.
The researchers say the most likely route of virus transmission is from human to animal, rather than the other way around.
Dr Broens, Veterinary Microbiological Diagnostic Centre, said: “We can’t say there is a 0% risk of owners catching COVID from their pets.
“At the moment, the pandemic is still being driven by human-to-human infections, so we just wouldn’t detect it.”
Vets in Russia have started vaccinating some animals against the disease, in response to this, Dr Broens said: “I don’t see the scientific evidence for that now.
“It seems unlikely that pets play a role in the pandemic.”
Prof James Wood, Cambridge University Veterinary Medicine Department Head, said: “The Dutch study is robustly conducted and shows that around 20% of exposed pets may be infected and that they eventually clear the infection just as most humans do.
“Most reports are that this infection appears to be asymptomatic.
“It also seems that the virus does not normally transmit from dogs and cats to either other animals or their owners.”
Lilly Subbotin
