zine
virus
HOME  ABOUT  FICTION  POETRY  ART  SUBMIT  NEWS  ZINES  BEWARE  CONTACT  BEST  WITCHES  HELLBOUND  BOOKS  FILM  STAFF
The Oddities in the News Page

In this month's Oddities in the News Page:

Can animals contract COVID-19 (the coronavirus)?

IN THE ODDITIES ARCHIVES

Dog Noses
Fisherman’s Unique Catch
Dr. Helen Sharman
Banana Art
Twinkie
What’s really in Loch Ness

tiger

A tiger caught coronavirus at a zoo. Can your cat catch it?

While both domestic cats and wild cats may be able to contract the virus, there's no sign of any human catching the virus from a cat.  

BY CAITLIN O'KANE

CBS News, April 8, 2020 -- There are still many unanswered questions about the novel coronavirus, but this week, new and surprising information about the transmission of the virus was revealed: A tiger at the Bronx Zoo tested positive — and health officials say she caught it from a zoo employee who had COVID-19, but was asymptomatic. The big cat is expected to recover, but its diagnosis worried many pet owners. Could their feline friends get the virus, too?

Researchers in China say they've determined that domestic cats are susceptible to airborne infection with the coronavirus. In a new study published in Science, scientists from Harbin Veterinary Research Institute intentionally exposed groups of cats, dogs, ferrets, pigs, chickens and ducks to the virus, and found some animals are more susceptible than others.

Fortunately for dogs, the researchers found that man's best friend has a low susceptibility to the virus. (story continues after photos)

ferrets

cat

However, both ferrets and cats do appear to be susceptible to infection, the study finds. To determine this, researchers inserted the virus, SARS-CoV-2, into the noses of five domestic cats. Three of the infected cats were put in cages next to uninfected ones. The researchers later found the virus in one of the exposed cats, suggesting it contracted the virus from droplets in the breath of the infected cats nearby.

The four cats that had coronavirus also developed antibodies against the virus. The researchers say knowledge of how the virus replicates in animals could be helpful in efforts to develop treatments for COVID-19 in humans. However, the study also raises many other questions.

For one thing, this experimental study might not mimic the way germs are spread in real life, Dr. Ann Hohenhaus, an internal medicine and small animal veterinarian at New York City's Animal Medical Center, told CBS News. "They took a known amount of virus and squirted it up the nose of the animals they were testing," she explained.

"When you do research, you got to start somewhere, so that was a big dose of the virus right up the nose. And I don't think there's anybody who thinks that mimics the situation out there of you and your pet in an apartment in New York City," Hohenhaus said, adding the study was an important step in the research of coronavirus and animals. 

The veterinarian said she has read countless studies that looked at coronavirus in various animals, and much of the research has not surprised her.

"Ferrets have been used for a long time to study upper respiratory disease in people and to help study disease and make vaccines. So, there's something to the ferret respiratory tract that makes the susceptible to our diseases," she said. "If you look at the genetics of the cat receptor... cats and people are almost identical."

"So, knowing that, you would say, 'Oh that virus should be able to get into a cat's cell,'" Hohenhaus said. "Dogs are only about 70% the same. So that piece of information explains why dogs are less susceptible because their receptor is not as friendly to letting the virus in."

Still, she said veterinarians, the CDC and U.S. Department of Agriculture are giving pet owners the same advice they've continued to give during this pandemic. "Wash your hands before you touch your pet, wash your hands after you touch your pet. If you're sick, wear a mask... you should not take care of your pet and find a surrogate to take care of your pet so that you can quarantine yourself away from everyone in the family, which includes all pets," Hohenhaus said.

While both domestic cats and big cats may be able to catch the virus, there's so far little evidence of risk to people's pets — and no sign of anyone actually catching the virus from a cat or dog. The domestic cats in the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute did not show any symptoms once infected with coronavirus. 

In the Bronx Zoo case, a tiger named Nadia, which tested positive for the virus, her sister Azul, two Amur tigers and three African lions all developed a dry cough and decrease in appetite. They are all expected to recover, the zoo said.

The USDA said the Bronx Zoo's tiger is the "first case of its kind" and "further studies are needed to understand if and how different animals could be affected by COVID-19."

See the entire article HERE

dog

Dogs seem less susceptible.

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) reported that there is no evidence that dogs could be a source of COVID-19 infection for humans, but the dogs themselves can become sick (in rare cases) after contracting the virus from humans, according to the South China Morning Post.

According to a question and answer page posted by the World Organization For Animal Health, which was last updated on April 21, "several dogs and cats (domestic cats and a tiger) have tested positive to COVID-19 virus following close contact with infected humans."

The document also says that "dogs appear to be susceptible to infection but appear to be less affected than ferrets or cats," and that current studies are looking into pets’ susceptibility to the disease.

"Previous experience with SARS suggests that dogs will not transmit the flu to humans," Vanessa Barrs from City University told the South China Morning Post. 

Cats and ferrets are more suspectible to COVID-19 than dogs.