As COVID-19 cases accumulate in the United States, a Texas veterinarian has silently monitored the spread of the disease, in humans, but also in their pets.
Since June, she and Dr. Sarah Hamer at Texas A University
A puppy that tested Phoenix positive, a partially Siamese 7-year-old cat owned by Kaitlyn Romoser, who works in a school lab. Romoser, 23, has been shown to have COVID-19 twice, once in March and once in September. At the time, she says she’s much sicker, and Phoenix is her constant companion.
“If I’d known the animals had it everywhere, I’d have tried to distance myself, but I probably wouldn’t have missed it,” Romoser said. “Sleep in my bed with me. Surely there was no social estgnation. “. “
Across the country, veterinarians and other researchers are tracking the animal kingdom for symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19. At least 2,000 animals in the United States have been screened for coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic, according to federal records. and dogs exposed to poorly ill homeowners account for the maximum number of animals analyzed and 80% of the positive cases found.
But scientists have launched a wide network to investigate other animals that would possibly be at risk. In the states of California to Florida, researchers tested species ranging from farm mink and zoo cats to unforeseen creatures such as dolphins, armadillos and anteaters.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture has not been able to do so. But it’s not the first time It maintains an official count of shown cases of COVID in animals, amounting to several dozen, but this list is a much lower count than actual infections. In Utah and Wisconsin, for example, more than 14,000 mink have died in recent weeks. after coVID, infections are first transmitted to humans.
So far, there has been little evidence that animals transmit the virus to humans. Veterinarians claim that puppy owners do not appear to be in danger compared to their furry peers and continue to love and care for them. way to stay alert to an unknown pathogen in the past.
“We just know that coronaviruses, as a family, infect many species, primarily mammals,” said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, professor of environmental sciences and occupational fitness and director of the Center for Health Research at the University of Washington in Seattle. . “It makes sense to take a multi-species, broad spectrum technique. “
Much of the evidence has been based on clinical curiosity. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a primary conundrum has been how the virus, which came from bats, has spread to humans. A main theory is that he jumped into an intermediate species. still unknown, and then for humans.
In April, a 4-year-old Malay tiger at the Bronx Zoo tested positive for COVID-19 in an exclusive case after seven large felines showed symptoms of respiratory disease. Four other tigers and 3 African lions were also shown to be infected.
In Washington state, America’s first human epidemic, scientists rushed to design a COVID control for animals in March, said Charlie Powell, a spokesman for Washington State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine. “We knew that with hot-blooded animals lodged together, there would be a cross infection, ” he said. Animal controls use other reactive compounds than those used in human controls, so as not to deplete human supply, Powell added.
Since the spring, the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory has examined about 80 animals, adding 38 dogs, 29 cats, two ferrets, a camel and two tamanduas, a type of anteater. The lab also examined six mink from the outbreak in Utah. five of which were positive tests in the lab.
In total, approximately 1,400 animals have been tested for COVID-19 through the USDA’s national network of animal fitness laboratories or personal laboratories, said Lyndsay Cole, spokesperson for the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. More than 400 animals have been tested through the national veterinary laboratories. At least 250 others have been tested on university studies projects.
The vast majority of checks were carried out on cats and domestic dogs with suspected respiratory symptoms. In June, the USDA reported that a dog in New York was the first puppy to test positive for coronavirus after getting sick and having difficulty breathing. , a 7-year-old German pastor named Buddy later died. Officials decided he had contracted his owner’s virus.
Neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the USDA recommends regimen testing for pets or other animals, but that has not ceased to apply, said Dr. Douglas Kratt, president of the American Veterinary Medicine Association.
“The problems are a bit more consistent in my practice,” he said. “People need to know more about COVID-19 and their puppies. Can your puppy be picked up from a clinic, boarding school, or daycare for dogs?”
The answer, so far, is that humans are the main source of infection in puppies. In September, a small unpublished study from the University of Guelph in Canada found that cats and puppy dogs gave the impression of being inflamed by their owners in poor health. , judging by the antibodies against the coronavirus detected in your blood.
In Texas, Hamer began testing animals from families who had contracted COVID-19 to be more informed about transmission pathways. “Right now, we’re looking a lot to describe what’s happening in nature,” he said.
So far, most animals, adding Phoenix, Romoser’s cat, have shown no symptoms of illness or disease, which so far is true for many species of animals tested for COVID-19, veterinarians said. mild symptoms such as sniffing and lethargy, if any.
Still, owners deserve to apply the most productive practices to prevent COVID infection from pets, Kratt suggested. Don’t let animals come into contact with unknown animals, he suggested. Possible.
Cats appear to be more sensitive to COVID-19 than dogs, according to researchers, and mink, which is bred in the United States and elsewhere for their fur, seems vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the list of creatures analyzed for COVID-19 — by disease or science — is growing. In Florida, 22 animals were tested in early October, adding 3 wild dolphins, two civetas, two nebulous leopards, a gorilla, an orangutan, an alpaca and a baby shrub, state officials said.
In California, 29 animals were tested until the end of September, a meerlate, a monkey and a coatimundi, a member of the raccoon family.
In Seattle, a control plan for orcas at Puget Sound was cancelled at the last minute after a member of the scientific team exposed himself to COVID-19 and had to be quarantined, said Dr. Joe Gaydos, a senior animal and scientific director of SeaDoc. Society, a conservation program at the University of California-Davis. The organization lost its September window to locate the animals and unload breath samples and faeces for analysis.
No one thinks that marine animals will play a role in the pandemic that decimats the human population, Gaydos said, but trying many creatures on land and sea is vital.
“We don’t know what it’s going to do or what this virus can do,” Gaydos said.
This article was reprinted on khn. org with the permission of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan fitness policy research organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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