Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Opinion

The covid-19 pandemic will end with public health tools, not clinical ones

BMJ 2022; 377 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1561 (Published 24 June 2022) Cite this as: BMJ 2022;377:o1561

Rapid Response:

SARS-CoV-2, from man to cat and viceversa.

Dear Editor,

The recent description of a CoViD-19 case in a veterinarian from Thailand, who likely acquired the infection from a SARS-CoV-2-infected cat (Sila et al., 2022), is a matter of concern. More in detail, after having caught the virus from one (or more of) its CoViD-19-affected owners, the animal - which also developed respiratory signs - likely passed the infection (through sneezing) to the aforementioned veterinarian, who was visiting that feline patient. As a matter of fact, the genomic sequences characterizing the SARS-CoV-2 isolates obtained from the cat itself, as well as from its owners and from the aforementioned veterinarian, were shown to overlap with each other (Sila et al., 2022).

On the basis of the original findings summarized above, cats - whose susceptibility to natural and experimental SARS-CoV-2 infection has been previously documented in a number of studies - add themselves to the growing list of domestic and wild animal species from which SARS-CoV-2 transmission to people has been reported. These already include mink (mink farms from The Netherlands, Denmark and USA) as well as hamsters (pet shops in Hong Kong) and white-tailed deer in Canada (Di Guardo, 2022).

In this respect, while inter-human transmission represents by far the most frequent modality through which SARS-CoV-2 infection is known to spread to and among people - as clearly shown by the highly contagious "omicron" variants and subvariants - the viral transmission cycles and dynamics occurring from humans to animals, alongside those taking place between animals and from animals to humans, should be carefully monitored. This seems to be especially important also in relation to the appearance of new, highly transmissible and/or pathogenic SARS-CoV-2 variants. A deep and continuous intersectorial collaboration between physicians and veterinarians is an absolute prerequisite in this direction, within the framework of the "One Health" principle, reminding us that human, animal and environmental health are mutually and inextricably linked to each other.

References

1) Sila T, Sunghan J, Laochareonsuk W, Surasombatpattana S, Kongkamol C, Ingviya T, et al. Suspected Cat-to-Human Transmission of SARS-CoV-2, Thailand, July–September 2021. Emerg Infect Dis. 2022;28(7):1485-1488. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2807.212605.

2) Di Guardo G. We should be vaccinating domestic and wild animal species against Covid-19. Veterinary Record 2022 (published on April 01, 2022).

Competing interests: No competing interests

30 June 2022
Giovanni Di Guardo
Retired Professor of General Pathology and Veterinary Pathophysiology
University of Teramo, Veterinary Medical Faculty, Località Piano d’Accio, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Rome, Italy