Testing on animals during the pandemic has been limited but there have been a handful of positive covid-19 cases seen in pets across the world in the last fortnight. The UK government’s website insists there’s ‘no evidence’ of animal transmission in Britain but the team at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in China have found that cats are ‘highly susceptible’ and the virus can easily be transmitted between felines, according to the Guardian. The experiment included five cats that were inoculated with a high dose of the disease and three of them were placed in cages next to unaffected cats. Results then showed that one of the previously unaffected cats had tested positive for the virus, proving that it could be transmitted through respiratory droplets.
The results follow reports of a cat contracting coronavirus in Belgium. The feline started to show signs of breathing difficulties a week after their owner showed symptoms of covid-19 and the cat subsequently tested positive for the disease. While the news is likely to worry cat owners, experts insist there is no evidence that cats are a danger to humans and that human-to-human transmission remains the biggest driver.
However, owners have nonetheless been warned to limit contact with their cats. ‘People should take usual precautions of hand washing when handling their pets, and avoid overly intimate contact, especially if sick with Covid,’ said Professor Eric Fevre, chair of veterinary infectious diseases at the University of Liverpool. ‘It is important to add that this says nothing about how the virus coming out of a cat may or may not be infectious to humans
