The two house cats in New York who tested positive for the new coronavirus have made a full recovery and did not further spread the infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed in a report on Monday.
The cats are believed to have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, from people in their households or neighborhoods.
“Close interactions between humans and pets create opportunities for zoonotic disease transmission. In both cases presented in this report, the cats with positive test results for SARS-CoV-2 had close epidemiologic links to owners with suspected or confirmed COVID-19,” the CDC said in its study. “No identified onward human or animal infections were attributed to these animals. This evidence supports findings to date that animals do not play a substantial role in spreading SARS-CoV-2, although human-to-animal transmission can occur in some situations.”
“Cat A” started showing symptoms of COVID-19 nine days after human onset of symptoms. The cat, a 4-year-old male domestic shorthair, lived in an apartment with five people in Nassau County. Three of the residents had signs of mild respiratory illness including fever, cough and sweating, but none of the five people had been tested for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 disease) infection. A second cat living in the household stayed healthy and was not tested for the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the owner for “cat B” began exhibiting symptoms eight days prior. The 5-year-old female cat in Orange County lived in a single-family home with one person who had developed fever, cough, chills, muscle aches, abdominal pain, diarrhea and sore throat. Another cat also lived in the residence but seemed to stay healthy.
The CDC recommends that pets that test positive for the coronavirus should be monitored and separated from persons and other animals until they recover. The agency also suggests pet owners should not allow their animals to interact with people or animals outside the household and should avoid dog parks or public places where large numbers of people and animals gather.
A small number of animals worldwide, including dogs, cats, zoo tigers and lions and farmed mink, have naturally caught the coronavirus, mostly through suspected human-to-animal spread. The CDC said experimental studies using ferrets, golden Syrian hamsters, Egyptian fruit bats and cats showed these animals can transmit the coronavirus to other co-housed animals of the same species.
An estimated 76 million pet cats live in the United States, according to the report, and about 70% of U.S. households own at least one pet.
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