Veterinarian became infected with cat coronavirus! – The world’s first recorded incident

Scientists in Thailand say they have identified the world’s first convincing case of a man, a veterinarian, being infected with a coronavirus from a cat carrying the virus.

Previous research has shown that cats can infect other animals, but now it seems that the first case of transmission from cat to human has been confirmed.

Researchers at Prince Songla University, who published the study in the US CDC’s “Infectious Diseases” journal, according to “Nature” and the British “Independent”, reported that it all started when a father and His son, who had been diagnosed positive for coronavirus, was taken by ambulance to the isolation ward of a university hospital, taking with them their ten-year-old cat, which was sent to a veterinary clinic for examination. There she sneezed in the face of a veterinarian, who, although wearing a mask and gloves, after a few days showed symptoms of Covid-19 (fever, cough, etc.), without any close contact being infected with coronavirus.

The genetic analysis that followed, showed that both the cat all three people (father, son and veterinarian) were infected with the same variant of the virus, which at that time was not widespread in the local population.

The researchers reported that “bWe found evidence that cats can transmit SARS-CoV-2 virus infection to humans. But the possibility of such a transmission is relatively unusual». As they said, it is remarkable that it took so long in the midst of a pandemic to confirm that it is possible for a cat to infect a human with a coronavirus.

To date, several dozen cases of Covid-19-infected cats have been reported internationally, but human transmission was considered possible. Cats, however, do not have a high viral load of the virus and are not contagious for more than a few days.

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