Reports of pets being infected with the coronavirus have been growing, but how worried should owners be? And could pets be spreading the virus between people?
The first confirmed case of a pet infected with SARS-CoV-2聽鈥� the virus that causes covid-19 鈥� was a Pomeranian dog in Hong Kong that reportedly caught it from its owner in February. Since then, there have been in pet cats and dogs globally.
鈥淗owever, we really don鈥檛 know how many pets have been infected because testing of animals is not being done extensively,鈥� says Suresh Kuchipudi at Pennsylvania State University.
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A small study led by Qiang Zhang at Huazhong Agricultural University and Huajun Zhang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that tested at animal shelters and pet hospitals in Wuhan, China, had antibodies showing they had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Meanwhile, an ongoing study led by Sarah Hamer at Texas A&M University has tested the pets of 50 US owners diagnosed with covid-19 and identified 3 cats and 1 dog infected with SARS-CoV-2. 鈥淭hese are animals that are at high risk 鈥� they鈥檙e in contact with positive people 鈥� so the fact that we鈥檝e only found four infected pets since we started in June suggests it鈥檚 not very common,鈥� she says.
Fortunately, most pets with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections have displayed only mild symptoms. For example, of the four infected pets identified by Hamer鈥檚 team, two had no detectable symptoms, one developed a sneeze and the other appeared sleepier than normal.
This is a positive sign, although it is possible that the virus could cause more severe illness in older pets or those with underlying health conditions like diabetes, says J眉rgen Richt at Kansas State University.
To be safe, owners that contract covid-19 should stay as far away from their pets as possible, says Angel Almendros at City University of Hong Kong. 鈥淣o petting, no kissing and let someone else take care of their feeding and grooming.鈥�
One critical question is whether pets that contract SARS-CoV-2 can pass it to other people. Lab experiments by Richt and his colleagues have shown that , but potential cat-to-human transmission is harder to study. The team is currently looking for genetic signatures in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that may reveal whether an infection in a person has come from a cat.
Kuchipudi believes that the risk of catching covid-19 from pets is probably very low, but thinks we should extend social distancing rules to animals until we know more. He recommends keeping cats indoors, not patting other people鈥檚 pets and keeping yourself and your dog away from other people and their dogs when you are out for a walk.
