It took two years, but researchers are now convinced that cats – although highly unlikely – can transmit SARS-CoV-2 to humans after a veterinarian in Thailand caught the virus from a sneezing pet that tested positive for the virus. This is the “first solid evidence” of cat-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, according to American Scientific.
The feline discovery, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases on June 6, was serendipitous, said co-author Sarunyou Chusri, an infectious disease researcher and physician at Prince of Songkla University in Hat Yai, southern Thailand. In August, a father and son who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were moved to an isolation ward at the university hospital. Their ten-year-old cat was also swabbed and tested positive. During a scrub, the cat sneezed in the face of a veterinarian who was wearing a mask and gloves but no eye protection.
Three days later, the vet developed a fever, sniffles and cough, and later tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, but none of her close contacts developed COVID-19, suggesting she was infected by the cat. Genetic analysis also confirmed that the vet was infected with the same variant as the cat and its owners, and that the viral genome sequences were identical.
But researchers say cat-to-human transmission is “probably rare,” according to Scientific American, because “infected cats don’t shed much virus and shed only a few days,” according to Hong Kong University virologist Leo Poon. Other animals known to have transmitted the virus to humans in very rare circumstances include mink, pet hamsters and white-tailed deer. Of course, humans are the primary, almost exclusive, spreaders of Covid-19.
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