Hamsters sold as pets are likely to have brought the delta variant of Sars-CoV-2 to Hong Kong and sparked a community outbreak of Covid-19. This was the result of a genetic analysis of virus samples from the rodents. The investigation confirmed earlier fears that a pet shop was the source of the outbreak. At the beginning of February, around 50 people in Hong Kong were infected. The city then had about 2,000 hamsters culled.
Hamsters are easily infected with Sars-CoV-2 and are therefore a popular model for studying the virus. The study from Hong Kong – which has been published online as a pre-release and has not yet been reviewed by experts – now provides the first evidence that hamsters can also be infected outside of the laboratory. They can also pass the virus on to other hamsters as well as to humans. After mink, rodents are the second known animal species that can infect people with Sars-CoV-2.
In late 2020, small outbreaks of Covid-19 in people in Denmark and the Netherlands were linked to farmed mink. The result was panic and mass culling. The latest study now highlights the pet trade as a way of spreading the virus, says co-author Leo Poon, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. “But to be fair to the hamsters,” Poon says, humans are much more likely to get infected from each other than from their pets.