Dogs and especially cats are apparently relatively often infected with their owners who are infected with Corona. This is indicated by two new studies.
The Canadian veterinarian Dorothee Bienzle reports that she found antibodies in 67 percent of the cats examined and 43 percent of the dogs, which indicates a previous infection. The animals had lived with infected people.
What symptoms do pets show?
Bienzle from the University of Guelph in Canada will present their results from July 9th to 12th at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). The data has not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed specialist magazine.
20 percent of the dogs would have had symptoms, 27 percent of the cats. In most cases, the disease passed quickly and easily. Symptoms range from strength and loss of appetite to coughing, runny noses, breathing problems and diarrhea in the four-legged friends.
Can pets bring the virus?
The veterinarian Els Broens from the University of Utrecht also found higher infections in pets of infected people. The PCR or antibody test was positive in every fifth of the 310 pets examined.
The main concern is not the health of the animals – they had no or only mild symptoms of Covid-19, Broens said, according to a congress message. Rather, it is about the potential risk that pets become the reservoir of the virus and could bring it back into the population. Fortunately, no transmissions from pets to humans have been reported so far. (SDA)