Cat diagnosed with coronavirus in first UK case of animal infection
A female Siamese cat has become the first animal in the UK to catch coronavirus, prompting a warning to owners not to kiss their pets or share food with them.
The cat from southern England is believed to have caught the virus from their owner in May. It was initially diagnosed by a private vet with feline herpes. But samples from the cat tested positive for Sars-Cov-2 in June as part of a coronavirus screening programme for hundreds of cats at Glasgow Centre for Virus Research.
Follow-up samples tested at the Animal Plant Health Laboratory in Weybridge last week confirmed the cat was also infected with Covid-19.
The six-year-old cat experienced only mild symptoms including shortness of breath and nasal discharge and has since recovered. But Margaret Hosie, professor of comparative virology at Glasgow University, who leads the screening programme, advised cat owners to “observe very careful hygiene”.
She said: “If you have any respiratory signs, then be sure to catch your cough or sneeze into a disposable tissue, and wash your hands before you handle your cat. Don’t kiss your cat. Don’t have the cat sleeping in a bed with you, and don’t share food with the cat.”
She expressed surprise that a Siamese cat, a breed which has short fur, caught the disease. “I thought maybe fluffier ones would be more ready to catch any sneezes or cough droplets. But you can’t draw any significance from that.”
She stressed that only a handful of cats around the world had tested positive for coronavirus and there was no evidence that the animals could transmit the disease to humans.
Hosie said: “We were very keen to identify a UK [case] because that enables us to work on understanding the transmission. It’s quite a rare finding. We are always interested in zoonotic diseases – a disease that can be transmitted between humans and animals – to see if there is any evolution in the virus. As yet our cat virus looks very similar to all the other cat viruses that have been isolated across Europe, the US and Hong Kong. We have got no evidence that the virus has changed before it can infect cats.”
In early April the British Veterinary Association created panic among cat owners after its president, Daniella Dos Santos, appeared to suggest the UK’s estimated 10.9 million cats should be kept at home during the pandemic.
After its website crashed, the BVA was forced to clarify that only owners who were self-isolating should keep their pets indoors if possible, raising the prospect of Larry the Downing Street cat having to go into isolation.
Dos Santos said the positive test should not cause alarm. She said: “It is really important that nobody should panic. There have been a tiny handful of cases across the world where pet animals have been infected with covid and there is no evidence that pets can pass on covid to their owners.”
She repeated the BVA advice that cat owners who have tested positive for Covid-19 or have symptoms should keep their cats indoors if possible.
Asked if No 10 should have set a better example by keeping Larry under lockdown when Boris Johnson was suffering with the virus, Dos Santos said: “I don’t know Larry, but my advice would remain the same if you have tested covid positive or [are] showing signs to keep your cat indoors if possible. We don’t know how much close contact Larry had with the prime minister and cats should only be kept indoors if they are happy to do so.”
The UK’s chief veterinary officer, Prof Christine Middlemiss,
said: “This is a very rare event with infected animals detected to date only showing mild clinical signs and recovering within in a few days.
“There is no evidence to suggest that pets directly transmit the virus to humans. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and will update our guidance to pet owners should the situation change.”
Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said it was a reminder for people to wash their hands after contact with animals. “This is the first case of a domestic cat testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK but should not be a cause for alarm,” she said.
“The investigation into this case suggest that the infection was spread from humans to animal, and not the other way round. At this time, there is no evidence that pets can transmit the disease to humans.”
A small number of cases of animals infected with Covid-19 have been reported globally, including a number of tigers and lions at the Bronx zoo in New York.