An article by scientists at the Prince of Songkla University of Medicine in Thailand indicated that a veterinarian may have been infected with the coronavirus after contact with a cat that tested positive for Covid-19. The case took place in August 2021 in the city of Songkla and may have been the first documented transmission of coronavirus from a cat to a human.
The contact would have happened after the cat sneezed at the veterinarian, who was doing a Covid-19 test on the animal. She wore an N95 mask with no face shield or glasses, says the study, which points to the possibility that transmission occurred through the woman’s ocular surface.
The cat’s two owners, father and son who lived in Bangkok, had tested positive for Covid-19 and ended up in Songkla hospital. The animal was then taken to the veterinary unit to be tested.
At the time of the RT-PCR test, using a nasal swab, the sedated cat sneezed in the veterinarian’s face. The test result confirmed that the animal was contaminated, with a high viral load at the time of the examination, and the woman began to have symptoms of the disease – later confirmed – three days after the procedure.
As the veterinarian had no other close contact with patients diagnosed with Covid-19, and the genomic sequencing indicated that the infections of the owners, the animal and the woman were epidemiologically related, the conclusion was that she probably contracted the virus at the time of the test. .
The study was published in a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) journal. “In summary, we provide evidence that cats can transmit Sars-CoV-2 infection to humans. However, the incidence of this method of transmission is relatively uncommon due to the short duration (average of 5 days) of cats that shed viable virus.
Scientists conclude by recommending that people with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 avoid contact with their cats. They also advise eye protection for caregivers when interacting with cats suspected of infection.
*Published by Marcelo Tuvuca, with information from Danilo Moliterno, from CNN
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Source: CNN Brasil
