[ad_1]
Sars-CoV-2 was detected in a cat in the veterinary laboratory of the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Zurich. “A woman suffering from Covid-19 came to us when her cat got sick and the vet couldn’t find a cause. She had heard about the study we are doing on pets in Covid homes. “This was announced by Professor Regina Hofmann-Lehmann, head of the veterinary medicine laboratory at the University of Zurich.
It has been known for a long time that cats can become infected with Sars-CoV-2. This had already been observed at Amoy Garden in Hong Kong, the suspected epicenter of the Sars outbreak in 2002. A study of 102 cats in January 2020 in Wuhan had shown that 15 had developed antibodies against the virus.
Higher concentration of viruses like ours in the throat
It’s very rare for cats infected with Sars-Coid-2 to develop symptoms, says Hofmann-Lehmann. And the vast majority of cases come from Covid households, so it must be assumed that people infected cats.
Cats infect each other, one study found. But in most cases they do not get sick. As in humans, the infection occurs through cells in the throat. The highest concentration of virus was also measured there. Therefore, contact with sputum from cats should be avoided.
Test the cats? Not a good idea: PCR tests are the same as for humans and cost between 150 and 200 francs.
© Sandra Ardizzone
Should you test your cat? “The lab we work with doesn’t do that,” says veterinarian Käthy Bucher Scholl. And it has to be an RT-PCR test like that of humans. It costs between 150 and 200 francs and must be paid for yourself. The rush must be limited.
Coronavirus and cat: a long relationship
FCov, the feline coronaviruses, are not unknown to the entire cat family, but they are extremely dangerous pathogens. They belong to alphacoronaviruses (human types belong to betacoronaviruses) and can cause feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), a dangerous infection that, if manifested as peritonitis, usually ends in a fatal way. The disease only occurs in cats (Felidae) and cats are probably the reservoir for the pathogen. This means that animals can harbor the pathogen for a long time without disease occurring.
This is not the case for Sars-CoV-2. Cats can become infected and infectious for a time, but their immune system can then deal with the pathogen. If elementary precautions are taken, people have nothing to fear from their cats. There is no evidence that cats are a reservoir for Sars.
If the relationship between feline and human coronaviruses is not so close, why can cats also get the human type? There are biochemical reasons for this. The entry point of the Sars virus into the cell is the enzyme ACE2. It is multifunctional and occurs in different places on the body.
The Sars-CoV-2 spike protein and its cell membrane coupling point.
© Health Industry BW / EJ according to Wrapp et al. (2020
The chemistry is correct between humans and cats.
After monkeys (chimpanzees and macaques), in which ACE2 chemistry is more than 90 percent identical to humans, the cat comes in with 85.2 percent. The dog follows next, which means that although it is susceptible to Sars-CoV-2, it is much less than the cat. If you look at how well ACE2 interacts with the virus, cats reach a value of 4 compared to humans, closer than dogs (5) or the pangolin, which is suspected to be an intermediate host (5).
Apparently, cats and ferrets share a common group of respiratory diseases with humans. It remains to be seen if this is for molecular reasons, as both are susceptible to similar viruses, or for social reasons.
