There are solutions for having pets looked after in the summer.

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JANEK SKARZYNSKI / AFP

Pets living with owners who are positive for Covid-19 are eight times more likely to be infected than their peers.

This is what reveals a study called Covidac, carried out in particular by the veterinary school VetAgro Sup, near Lyon.

The multidisciplinary team that carried out this work, bringing together veterinarians, virologists and doctors, "aimed to assess the intensity of the virus circulation among domestic animals", explains Vincent Legros, lecturer in infectious pathology.

To this end, "blood samples were taken from two groups of animals between May and June 2020," he said, presenting the study to VetAgro, one of the four French national veterinary schools.

"A much greater viral circulation than expected"

The first group consisted of 47 animals (13 dogs and 34 cats), considered to be at high risk because they came from an outbreak in which at least one human Covid-19 case had been diagnosed.

The second, at moderate risk, included 28 animals (16 cats and 22 dogs) whose owner status was unknown.

Among the moderate risk animals, only one cat exhibited antibodies.

On the other hand, in the high-risk group, more than 20% of the animals were found to be positive, "which suggests a much greater viral circulation than expected", notes the study.

This serological survey does not make it possible to identify the origin of their contamination, "but the fact that the risk for a domestic carnivore to be infected is 8.1 times higher if it resides in a person positive for Covid-19 constitutes a strong argument for the human origin of their infection ”, according to this work.

Pending more precise knowledge, "we recommend that pets are not put in contact with people infected with Covid-19", advises the study.

The question of the potential role of companion animals has been the subject of attention since the emergence of the Covid at the end of 2019, due to its probable animal origin, but also the existence of related coronaviruses already circulating in domestic animals.

On the other hand, the absence of risk associated with the latter quickly gained consensus, even if some (in particular cats) could transmit the virus in the laboratory to their congeners and that infected animals were sporadically identified in Hong Kong, in Belgium, then in other countries.

Future work will aim to assess the risk associated with infected domestic animals, in particular through larger scale serological analyzes.

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  • Animals

  • Disease

  • Health

  • Infection

  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus