{"id":56257,"date":"2020-03-06T14:32:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T19:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/?p=56257"},"modified":"2020-03-06T14:32:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T19:32:59","slug":"a-dog-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-should-pets-be-quarantined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/canada\/a-dog-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-should-pets-be-quarantined\/","title":{"rendered":"A dog tested positive for coronavirus. Should pets be quarantined?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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News that a dog tested positive for the coronavirus in Hong Kong likely set off alarm bells this week among pet owners.\u00a0While there’s no indication the virus can spread to humans from dogs,\u00a0some experts say there may be a need for quarantines among pets of owners who contract the virus.<\/p>\n
Hong Kong officials collected samples on Feb. 26\u00a0from a\u00a0dog of a patient who had COVID-19 and found “low levels” of the coronavirus in\u00a0its nose and mouth the following day.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
Followup tests determined the dog tested “weak positive” for the virus. Then, international experts at the\u00a0World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)<\/u>\u00a0concluded the dog has some degree of infection, likely caused by human-to-animal transmission.<\/p>\n
“I think this dog has a low level of infection,” Thomas Sit, assistant director of the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries\u00a0and Conservation Department (AFCD), said Thursday.<\/p>\n
“According to experts, it’s likely the human infected the dog.\u2026 Sometimes\u00a0animals infect humans\u00a0and sometimes [it’s] the other way around.”<\/p>\n
The dog, which is reportedly a 17-year-old Pomeranian, has been in quarantine in Hong Kong under close surveillance,\u00a0 but has displayed no symptoms of the COVID-19 illness.<\/p>\n
How did the dog get infected?<\/h2>\n
Prof. J. Scott Weese of the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College, who studies diseases that can pass between animals and humans, said it was initially thought the dog became infected due to contamination from living in close contact with its owner.<\/p>\n
“The fact that it was positive two days later and they weren’t calling it a ‘weak positive’ the second time would suggest that it was more of a true positive that’s more consistent with the dog actually being infected,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The dog is clinically normal, which is good for the dog, but it also [shows] why we need to sort this out.”<\/p>\n
Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the World Health Organization’s emergency program, said it’s not unusual to find animals that can be “transient hosts” in\u00a0infectious disease outbreaks, carrying the disease without spreading it.<\/p>\n
He said similar issues have been seen in the\u00a0SARS\u00a0epidemic of 2003 and the ongoing MERS outbreaks in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
“This dog is a victim…” he said. “We need to establish quite clearly what part animals might play in further transmission, but that is unknown.”<\/p>\n