A dog tested certain for coronavirus. Should pets be quarantined?

News that a dog tested certain for a coronavirus in Hong Kong expected set off alarm bells this week among pet owners. While there’s no denote a pathogen can widespread to humans from dogs, some experts contend there competence be a need for quarantines among pets of owners who agreement a virus.

Hong Kong officials collected samples on Feb. 26 from a dog of a studious who had COVID-19 and found “low levels” of a coronavirus in its nose and mouth a following day. 

If we have a dog, cat or ferret, and you’re isolating during home, those animals should be removed during home with you.– Prof. J. Scott Weese, University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College

Followup tests dynamic a dog tested “weak positive” for a virus. Then, general experts during a World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) resolved a dog has some grade of infection, expected caused by human-to-animal transmission. 

“I consider this dog has a low turn of infection,” Thomas Sit, partner executive of a Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD), pronounced Thursday. 

“According to experts, it’s expected a tellurian putrescent a dog.… Sometimes animals taint humans and infrequently [it’s] a other approach around.”

The dog, that is reportedly a 17-year-old Pomeranian, has been in quarantine in Hong Kong underneath tighten surveillance,  though has displayed no symptoms of a COVID-19 illness.

How did a dog get infected?

Prof. J. Scott Weese of a University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College, who studies diseases that can pass between animals and humans, pronounced it was primarily suspicion a dog became putrescent due to decay from vital in tighten hit with a owner. 

“The fact that it was certain dual days after and they weren’t job it a ‘weak positive’ a second time would advise that it was some-more of a loyal certain that’s some-more unchanging with a dog indeed being infected,” he said. 

“The dog is clinically normal, that is good for a dog, though it also [shows] why we need to arrange this out.”

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive of a World Health Organization’s puncture program, pronounced it’s not surprising to find animals that can be “transient hosts” in infectious illness outbreaks, carrying a illness though swelling it.

He pronounced identical issues have been seen in the SARS epidemic of 2003 and a ongoing MERS outbreaks in a Middle East.

“This dog is a victim…” he said. “We need to settle utterly clearly what partial animals competence play in serve transmission, though that is unknown.” 

Dr. William Karesh, executive vice-president of a EcoHealth Alliance and a veterinarian formed in New York operative with a OIE on this case, pronounced it’s probable other animals could lift a virus.

At slightest dual cats were found to be carriers of SARS after an conflict in a Hong Kong unit formidable during a 2003 epidemic.

“They tested certain for SARS since they were vital with so many people that were infected,” he said. 

“But they never transmitted a illness to anyone. There was no justification that they widespread a disease.”

Could a dog taint humans or other pets?

The dog will be regularly tested over a entrance days and Hong Kong officials contend it will usually be expelled after it tests negative. Genetic tests are also reportedly being done on a coronavirus taken from a dog, to establish if it deteriorated after infection. 

“We don’t have adequate information to have a 100 [per cent] answer either it’s spreading to other dogs or not,” Sit said. 

“But if a dog owners is positive, it’s improved to take precautionary measures to forestall leading transmission.”

The World Small Animal Veterinary Association pronounced in a matter that while tests suggested a tiny apportion of COVID-19, they did not prove either there were “intact pathogen particles” that are spreading – or usually fragments of a genetic element that are not contagious. 

“Just like there are opposite forms of people that competence be some-more expected to uncover clinical disease, a same thing competence be loyal with a animals,” pronounced Dr. Jason Stull, a veterinary epidemiologist and partner highbrow during a Atlantic Veterinary College during a University of P.E.I.

“We need some-more information. The fact that Hong Kong has started to do this, we consider will be altogether useful and improved [for] bargain what a loyal risk competence be.”

Should pets of COVID-19 patients be isolated?

Weese pronounced one unfolding that needs to be ruled out are “perfectly healthy” animals that uncover no signs of infection though are still means to strew a virus. 

“So even if they can’t get infected, we’re disturbed they could lane it around,” he said. 

“That’s because we wish to get a recognition out that if we have a dog, cat or ferret, and you’re isolating during home, those animals should be removed during home with you.”

Hong Kong’s AFCD says it “strongly advises” that dogs and cats from a homes of COVID-19 patients be put underneath quarantine as a precaution, while a World Health Organization says it is monitoring a conditions closely. 

“We’re usually wakeful of this one animal that’s tested certain and he’s doing well,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an spreading illness epidemiologist with a WHO, pronounced during a news conference Thursday. 

“We don’t trust that this is a vital motorist of delivery … though again it’s usually one instance of this and so of march it deserves most some-more study.”

Should Canadian pet owners be concerned?

The Public Health Agency of Canada says there is now no justification to advise that any animal local to Canada (wild, stock or pets) harbours a pathogen that causes COVID-19 and animals in Canada don’t poise a risk of infecting people with a virus.

The group recommends that, until we know more, patients putrescent with COVID-19 and have a pet or other animal should:  

• Avoid tighten hit with them; do not graze or lick them, and do not let them lick you, lay on your lap or nap in your bed.

• Avoid coughing and sneezing on your pet or other animal.

• Wash your hands before touching or feeding your pet or other animals.

• Limit your pet’s or other animal’s hit with other people and animals.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/coronavirus-dog-spread-humans-1.5487621?cmp=rss