Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
Animals-Covid19 Misc FAQ's |
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Tabitha111
Adviser Group Joined: January 11 2020 Location: Virginia Status: Offline Points: 11640 |
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Posted: March 14 2020 at 9:35am |
By Scott Weese on It’s pretty much full time COVID-19 around here and I’ve gotten behind in posting. I figured it might be useful to recap some of the more common questions. Does the SARS-CoV-2 virus (virus that causes COVID-19) infect animals? It started in animals and has been found in a dog, but we don’t know much more. From a transmission standpoint, this is a human disease. Whether it’s purely human or predominantly human is a lingering question. If it’s purely a human disease, we can ignore the animal side (except as fomites (contaminated surface)…more on that below). If it’s predominantly an animal disease, the focus still needs to be on people, but there are some animal aspects worth considering. What about that dog in Hong Kong? The dog was owned by an infected person and had a series of positive tests. That’s pretty convincing evidence that it was infected. However, the tests were weak positives and no detectable antibody response was present (at least yet), supporting a pretty low grade infection. Infected vs infectious is the big question. An individual can be infected but not infectious, if they’re not producing much virus. The hope is that dogs are not a great host for the virus and if infected, maybe they’re not infected enough to pose a risk. What about cats? They’re still a bigger concern because they are more likely to be infectious and limited (or no?) testing has been done. They were able to be infected by the SARS virus and could infect other cats, and this virus is similar enough that it’s reasonable to be concerned about them. Time will tell based on field study (hopefully) and probably experimental work. Should I be worried about catching this disease from my dog/cat? No. As a disease that is predominantly or purely transmitted by people, pets are going to get it from people. If your dog/cat is infected, it probably got it from you or one of your close contacts (who pose more of a risk to you than the dog/cat.) So, what should we think about with pets? Common sense. If you’re infected, stay away from people and pets. If you’re infected and you’ve been with your pet, keep it away from others. If we keep pets from getting exposed and keep exposed pets away from people, then the risks will be limited, if there are any. What about livestock? |
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