First Case of Human-to-Cat Transmission
Live Science reports Cat Infected with COVID-19 from Owner in Belgium.
A domestic cat in Belgium has been infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus that’s spreading across the globe, the government’s FPS Public Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment announced March 27, according to news reports.
This is the first human-to-cat transmission of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). About a week after its owner got sick with COVID-19, after returning from a trip to Northern Italy, the cat developed coronavirus symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting and respiratory issues, Steven Van Gucht, virologist and federal spokesperson for the coronavirus epidemic in Belgium, told Live Science.
The owner sent samples of vomit and feces to Dr. Daniel Desmecht’s lab at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Liège. Genetic tests showed high levels of SARS-CoV-2 in those samples, he said. “The cat recovered after 9 days,” Van Gucht said.
In humans, scientists have figured out that the SARS-CoV-2 virus attaches to a receptor protein called ACE2 that’s on the outside of respiratory cells. Once inside of these cells, the virus hijacks certain machinery so it can replicate.
“The feline ACE2 protein resembles the human ACE2 homologue, which is most likely the cellular receptor which is being used by Sars-CoV-2 for cell entry,” Van Gucht said.
During the 2003 SARS outbreak, cats were infected with a coronavirus as well, Van Gucht said.
Pertinent Thought
Given that receptors appear to be the same, if humans can infect cats, then it’s logical to presume cats can infect humans.
Questions of the Day
- Does your cat wear a mask?
- Is your cat social distancing?
- Are you maintaining proper social distance from your cat?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
A cat just tested positive in Hong Kong as well.
It looks like the virus has discovered a hitherto unknown, widely shared commonality among different mammals, from bats to humans to felines to snakes (ugh, those aren’t even mammals…..) to ……, and is exploiting this to infect new hosts. Similar to hackers discovering an exploit in fundamental code libraries widely relied on across platforms and applications.
Pets may get tested, wildlife is highly unlikely to (Hong Kong should test some of the monkeys they have crowding some roads in the New Territories). Yet considering how far and wide humans have spread the virus, it may well become endemic across all manners of species all across the world.
And military strategists, as well as evolutionary anthropologists, are still amazed by Genghis’ speed of conquest, rape and pillage in the quest to spread his genes….. Compared to this stuff, human expansion is amateur hour.
We’re cheerful today 🙁
Hey, things could be worse…..:
Like the virus finding a way to jump from cats to rodents…. Even the Chinese come up short trying to eradicate those nasty buggers. As well as keeping them out of both human housing and food supplies….
Now you’ve got me remembering reading Stephen King’s The Rats
🙁 🙁 🙁
Rats looks likely to have powered the black plague as well. They’re just nasty, period. And about impossible to get rid of, anywhere.
Heck, even when that meteor, or comet, hit hard enough to boil away the oceans and pretty much kill off all life on earth, the bloody rodents still hung in there. I doubt even The Taliban is that resilient….
And the rodents were, no doubt, carrying nasty pathogens with then wherever they went, even back then.
🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
Could We Be Living With COVID-19 Forever?
There are four coronaviruses already endemic in the human population. COVID-19 could become the fifth.
By Nathaniel Scharping
March 30, 2020 9:14 AM
Felines don’t generally get sick from humans, but it turns out this one was a real pussy!
Even more evidence that a new pathogen surveillance system could have been in place, preempting local CCP hacks in Wuhan who pissed away a couple months, thereby launching this damned thing on the world.
I’d bet not one of them could pick an antigen shift out of a lineup with Hurst shifters, yet they blew the warning window while sitting tightly focused on pleasing their CCP masters.
For some early morning insanity … I suggest a Google search for “Wuhan wet market reopens”
The cat’s thinking, “Wait, you brought WHAT home with you?” You’ve really screwed the pooch this time…”
It’s whats for dinner in China.
I suppose you’ve all seen the utterly ridiculous news (joke?!) that the Chinese government is allowing wet markets in Wuhan and elsewhere to reopen. If that is really true, I think the entire rest of the planet needs to social, and otherwise, distance itself from that lunatic asylum.
Or perhaps the Chinese government is perfectly aware that the virus actually originated from the bio-lab near Wuhan and they have that “firmly under control” and wet markets are perfectly safe?
yeah … right
This is a joke I learned from my Chinese daughter-in-law. The Chinese will eat anything with four legs, except the table.
Shame, wood has a lot of fibre.
Actually, they will anything that moves – flies, crawls, swims, runs. Even if it has more or less than 4 legs or no legs at all.
I only wish this was an April Fools Day prank… God help us all…
This is NOT going away any time soon…
You’re correct. Cats might prove to be a reservoir for the disease. If proven, the consequences could be ugly. In places like China, I could see the CCP ordering mass culls.
Here in Belgium it was on the news last week already….the cat has recovered , btw ….
That’s the same cat that appears all over twitter anytime someone takes out an assault rifle right ?
Time to quarantine my laptop …
Don’t forget the mouse 😉
Well, on the bright side, cats are probably more inclined toward maintaining social distancing than dogs. If Fido tests positive we’re all in trouble!
There were several articles originating from China in February describing mass killings of dogs after it was discovered that dogs, too, carry and transmit the covid-19 virus. It attacks anything with a heart and/or lungs… but no, it isn’t a bioweapon! s/