News that a dog tested positive for the coronavirus in Hong Kong likely set off alarm bells this week among pet owners. While there’s no indication the virus can spread to humans from dogs, some experts say there may be a need for quarantines.
News that a dog tested positive for the coronavirus in Hong Kong likely set off alarm bells this week among pet owners. While there’s no indication the virus can spread to humans from dogs, some experts say there may be a need for quarantines among pets of owners who contract the virus.
Hong Kong officials collected samples on Feb. 26 from a dog of a patient who had COVID-19 and found “low levels” of the coronavirus in its nose and mouth the following day.
If you have a dog, cat or ferret, and you’re isolating at home, those animals should be isolated at home with you.– Prof. J. Scott Weese, University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College
Followup tests determined the dog tested “weak positive” for the virus. Then, international experts at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) concluded the dog has some degree of infection, likely caused by human-to-animal transmission.
“I think this dog has a low level of infection,” Thomas Sit, assistant director of the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD), said Thursday.
“According to experts, it’s likely the human infected the dog.… Sometimes animals infect humans and sometimes [it’s] the other way around.”
The dog, which is reportedly a 17-year-old Pomeranian, has been in quarantine in Hong Kong under close surveillance, but has displayed no symptoms of the COVID-19 illness.
How did the dog get infected?
Prof. J. Scott Weese of the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College, who studies diseases that can pass between animals and humans, said it was initially thought the dog became infected due to contamination from living in close contact with its owner.
“The fact that it was positive two days later and they weren’t calling it a ‘weak positive’ the second time would suggest that it was more of a true positive that’s more consistent with the dog actually being infected,” he said.
“The dog is clinically normal, which is good for the dog, but it also [shows] why we need to sort this out.”
Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the World Health Organization’s emergency program, said it’s not unusual to find animals that can be “transient hosts” in infectious disease outbreaks, carrying the disease without spreading it.
He said similar issues have been seen in the SARS epidemic of 2003 and the ongoing MERS outbreaks in the Middle East.
“This dog is a victim…” he said. “We need to establish quite clearly what part animals might play in further transmission, but that is unknown.”
Dr. William Karesh, executive vice-president of the EcoHealth Alliance and a veterinarian based in New York working with th