At first, it was thought that animals such as cats and dogs would not be infected with the new crown virus. But recently, the director saw a news report that seven more lions and tigers at the New York Zoo had been diagnosed with the new crown virus, and one was still asymptomatic.
Domestically, there are some reports with the headline "14.7% of cats in Wuhan have been infected with the new crown virus", which has also caused us panic.
These reports cite a preprint article by the Research Team of the State Key Laboratory of Microbiology of Huazhong Agricultural University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and directly conclude that 14.7% of cats in Wuhan have been infected with the new crown virus.
Is there a cat infection in Wuhan? Where does the infected cat virus come from, and will it infect people?
With these questions in mind, today the director would like to share with you the current situation.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 Is it true that 14.7% of cats are infected with the new crown virus? </h1>
This conclusion is not correct.
If you have carefully read this preprint article, you will find that it is actually some media taken out of context.
In this experiment, the researchers focused on "families of convalescents, or cats that were abandoned during the pandemic and held in adoption homes and pet hospitals, because these cats are more likely to be exposed to the new crown virus.
In addition, the total sample size of the study was small. They sampled 143 cats (102 of them only after the outbreak), and 15 of them were positive for the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the new coronavirus, accounting for 14.7% – which is why 14.7% of the media reports are for this reason.
Further, 11 of the 15 positive test samples contained serum neutralizing antibodies against the new coronavirus, accounting for 10.8% (11/102).
It is also mentioned in the article that the cats in the study had negative nucleic acid tests, had no clinical symptoms, and were extremely contagious.
Merlin, the author of the paper, has also published a rumor: "cat infection" is a misreading, and there is no evidence of large-scale infection of cats.
The research team also made a reasonable guess in the study:
Covid-19 infection in cats may be caused by exposure to an environment contaminated by the new crown virus or by a person who has been fed COVID-19 in a cat.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 These animals are also infected with the new crown virus</h1>
In fact, in the past month and a half, there have been several reports of animal infections with the new crown virus.
The first report comes from a report by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government on 26 March.
The report said that the pet dog of a new crown pneumonia patient in Hong Kong has been infected with the virus to a low degree, becoming the world's first case.
They repeatedly tested the dog's oral and nasal samples, which were weakly positive for the new coronavirus.
On 27 March, Belgium reported a case of COVID-19 infection in a cat.
A week after the cat's owner developed COVID-19, he developed typical symptoms of infection, including difficulty breathing, and was later diagnosed.
But even though the cat in the home also developed respiratory symptoms and had high levels of the virus in vomit and feces, researchers were still unable to determine whether it was infected with COVID-19 or other diseases.
A spokesman for the Belgian National Council for animal protection said that "the transmission [of the virus] is from humans to cats, not from cats to humans." ”
There is also the director mentioned at the beginning of the article, on April 5, the bronx zoo in New York, the United States, infected with the new crown virus tiger, is the world's first case of non-domestic animals being infected.
The tiger infected with the new coronavirus is a female tiger named Nadia, and after Nadia and her sister Azul, two other Siberian tigers and three African lions all developed a dry cough, the USDA's National Veterinary Service Laboratory tested Nadia for the new crown virus and tested positive for the new crown virus.
At present, so many animals infected with the new crown virus are likely to be transmitted by humans. However, seeing here another problem comes -
Why are cats the majority of many cases of animal infection with the new crown virus?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 Are cats more susceptible to COVID-19? </h1>
A new study recently published in the American journal Science found:
The new crown virus is easy to infect cats and ferrets, but it is weakly infectious to dogs, pigs, chickens, ducks, etc.
In this regard, Professor Yang Zhanqiu of the Institute of Virology of the School of Basic Medical Sciences of Wuhan University Explained——
The reason why the new crown virus can infect humans is because the virus S protein can bind to the human ACE2 receptor, and the ACE2 receptor in the cat is highly similar to the human, so the cat is easily infected.
If the virus derived from the cat is exactly the same as the new coronavirus in the human body, it can be said that the cat is infected with the human new coronavirus, otherwise its correlation cannot be explained, only antibodies are detected, and the persuasion is not strong.
In addition, to detect the presence of coronavirus in cats, we should first rule out whether the detected virus was originally carried by the cat.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >04 Do animals transmit the virus to humans? How to do a good job of pet protection measures? </h1>
There is currently no evidence that cats infect people.
At the same time, scientists need to do more research on the transmission route of the new crown virus from humans to cats.
Lindsay Cole, an officer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection, has suggested that anyone infected with the coronavirus should limit their contact with animals "just as they minimize contact with other people." ”
In addition, we need to prevent the new crown virus through effective comprehensive prevention and control measures.
(1) If it is a cat raised in a normal family, as long as it does not contact the source of infection and the home environment is hygienic, the possibility of contracting the new crown virus is not high.
Do a good job of cleaning and disinfecting the environment and supplies every day, and pay more attention to the health of pets.
(2) For stray animals, even if they are not infected with the new crown virus, they may carry other pathogens. Therefore, it is recommended that you avoid contact with stray animals, and do not shout at them to kill.
(3) If you take a pet out, the owner needs to wear a mask, avoid going to crowded places, and do not have unnecessary contact with other animals or people.
Be sure to wash your hands with soap and water when you return, and give your pet a good hygiene.
Under the epidemic, animals, like humans, are victims of the virus.
While we need to be wary of unprotected animals becoming intermediate sources of infection, we must not treat animals harshly.
Do not abandon or even kill animals out of panic, but treat them kindly, keep a distance from wild animals, pay attention to the hygiene and health status of domestic animals, and isolate and treat abnormalities in time.