Scientists warn that there is a potential for pets to act as a reservoir for the SARS-COV-2 and reinfect the human population.
Research indicates that COVID-19 is common among pets who have contracted the disease.
A team of scientists from the Netherlands examined 156 dogs and 154 cats from 196 households for the coronavirus.
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6 cats and 7 dogs (4.2%) returned positive PCR tests and 31 cats and 23 dogs (17.4%) found positive for COVID antibodies.
Scientists said pet owners who had COVID should avoid contact with their pets while infected.
Dr Els Broens, from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said:
8 cats and dogs that lived in the same homes as the pets that tested positive for the virus were also swabbed for a second time to check for virus transmission among pets.
None tested positive, suggesting the virus was not being passed between pets living in close contact with one another.
The research led by Dr Broens was presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) but has not yet been published in a journal.
Separate research, also presented to the ECCMID, suggests cats that sleep on their owner’s bed may be at particular risk of contracting the disease.
Dorothee Bienzle, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Guelph in Canada, who presented the findings, said:
She also suggested keeping coronavirus-infected animals away from other people and their pets.
Prof Bienzle said:
Commenting on the findings, Professor James Wood, head of the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge, said both studies are consistent with “a growing number of studies that are suggesting that a substantial proportion of pet cats and dogs may catch Sars-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19) from their owners”.
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