Evidence of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in cats and dogs from households in Italy

Patterson, Ian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3465-0848, Elia, G., Grassi, A., Giordano, A., Desario, C., Medardo, M., Smith, S. L., Anderson, Enyia, Prince, T., Patterson, G. T., Lorusso, E., Lucente, M. S., Lanave, G., Lauzi, S., Bonfanti, U., Stranieri, A., Martella, V., Solari Basano, F., Barrs, V. R., Radford, A. D., Agrimi, U., Hughes, Grant ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7567-7185, Paltrinieri, S. and Decaro, N. (2020) 'Evidence of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in cats and dogs from households in Italy'. Nature Communications, Vol 11, Issue 1, p. 6231.

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Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 emerged from animals and is now easily transmitted between people. Sporadic detection of natural cases in animals alongside successful experimental infections of pets, such as cats, ferrets and dogs, raises questions about the susceptibility of animals under natural conditions of pet ownership. Here, we report a large-scale study to assess SARS-CoV-2 infection in 919 companion animals living in northern Italy, sampled at a time of frequent human infection. No animals tested PCR positive. However, 3.3% of dogs and 5.8% of cats had measurable SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody titers, with dogs from COVID-19 positive households being significantly more likely to test positive than those from COVID-19 negative households. Understanding risk factors associated with this and their potential to infect other species requires urgent investigation.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	WA Public Health > WA 100 General works WA Public Health > WA 105 Epidemiology WA Public Health > WA 4 Works on general hygiene WC Communicable Diseases > Virus Diseases > Viral Respiratory Tract Infections. Respirovirus Infections > WC 505 Viral respiratory tract infections
Faculty: Department:	Biological Sciences > Vector Biology Department
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20097-0
SWORD Depositor:	JISC Pubrouter
Depositing User:	Stacy Murtagh
Date Deposited:	08 Dec 2020 12:47
Last Modified:	15 Jan 2021 12:09
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/16300

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