A Cat In Belgium Tested Positive For COVID-19, But You Shouldn't Panic

United States News News

A Cat In Belgium Tested Positive For COVID-19, But You Shouldn't Panic
United States Latest News,United States Headlines
  • 📰 HuffPostWomen
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 78 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 34%
  • Publisher: 68%

This may be the first known case of a cat getting sick from the novel coronavirus, though experts stress cases of pets catching it remain extremely rare.

Health officials in Belgium say a pet cat appears to have contracted COVID-19 from her owner, though they emphasized human-to-pet transmission seems to be extremely rare.

“Recently, the veterinary medicine faculty in Liège reported that a coronavirus infection has been determined in a cat,” virologist Steven Van Gucht said at a Federal Public Service Health press conference on Friday,. “The cat lived with her owner, who started showing symptoms of the virus a week before the cat did.”

The cat had diarrhea and breathing trouble, and researchers subsequently found the novel coronavirus in her feces. As of Saturday, both cat and owner“We want to stress that this is an isolated case,” Van Gucht said. “Additionally, in this case, we are talking about a human-to-animal transmission, not the other way around. There are no indications that this is common. The risk of animal-to-human transmission is very small.

Those sentiments were echoed by Jane Sykes, chief veterinary medical officer at the University of California, Davis. Cats and dogs, she said, may be “dead-end” hosts for the virus, meaning they could become infected but don’t shed enough of the virus to transmit it to humans other animals. So far, there are no known cases of pets transmitting the virus to people, but there’s not enough data to tell for sure if that’s possible. But generally, “you’re more likely to get infected from another person,” Sykes told HuffPost.tested positive for the virus and were asymptomatic. At least one of those dogs tested “weakly positive,” leading some experts to believe the dog could be merely carrying traces of the virus in its nose or fur, rather than being truly infected.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

HuffPostWomen /  🏆 27. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

I Think My Cat Is Getting Radicalized By 'Tiger King'I Think My Cat Is Getting Radicalized By 'Tiger King'If I disappear under mysterious circumstances, ask Holly first
Read more »

The Cat-Human Relationship and Factors That Affect ItThe Cat-Human Relationship and Factors That Affect ItA new book by cat expert Sarah Brown explores how cats fit into human society.
Read more »

Let’s Talk About Sex: Ari Lennox And Doja Cat Bring Steamy ‘BMO (Remix)’ To LifeLet’s Talk About Sex: Ari Lennox And Doja Cat Bring Steamy ‘BMO (Remix)’ To Life.AriLennox and DojaCat are unstoppable on the sizzling new “BMO” remix 🔥
Read more »

Love Island’s Molly-Mae Hague's cat returns home after being hit by two carsLove Island’s Molly-Mae Hague's cat returns home after being hit by two carsMolly-Mae Hague's beloved tabby cat has returned home after spending two weeks under vet's care when he was hit by two different cars and somehow survived
Read more »



Render Time: 2025-02-17 11:15:50