First report of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 detection in two asymptomatic cats in the state of Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil

Vet World Vol.14 October-2021 Article-36

Research Article

Veterinary World, 14(10): 2839-2842

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2021.2839-2842

Ivyson da Silva Epifanio¹, Davi dos Santos Rodrigues¹, Leonardo Borges de Lima¹, Maria Aurea de Azevedo Nogueira¹, Laelia Reginae do Monte Pessoa Felix¹, Barbara Ferreira de Almeida¹, Claudia Kathariny da Silva Farias¹, Otavio Valerio de Carvalho², Rita de Cassia Carvalho Maia¹, Luiz Eduardo Ristow², David Soeiro Barbosa³, Juliana Arena Galhardo⁴, Christina Pettan-Brewer⁵, Louise Bach Kmetiuk⁶, Rafael Garabet Agopian⁷, Valeria Dutra⁸, Helio Autran de Morais⁹, Andrea Pires dos Santos¹⁰, Alexander Welker Biondo⁶, and Daniel Friguglietti Brandespim¹

1. Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil.
2. TECSA Animal Reference Laboratory, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
3. Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
4. Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.
5. Department of Comparative Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
6. Department of Veterinary Medicine, Federal University of Paran, Curitiba, Paran, Brazil.
7. Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Santo Amaro, São Paulo, Brazil.
8. Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Federal University of Mato Grosso, Cuiab, Mato Grosso, Brazil.
9. Department of Clinical Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
10. Department of Comparative Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.

Background and Aim: Despite worldwide case reports, including Brazilian cases, no frequency study on infection of pets by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been conducted to date in Brazil. Accordingly, the present study was aimed to assess dogs and cats belonging to positive owners in Recife, Northeastern Brazil.

Materials and Methods: This was a longitudinal prospective study on dogs and cats in the city of Recife whose owners were in isolation at home due to a confirmed laboratory diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 through reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Oral and rectal swabs from the pets were tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2-specific RNA by means of RT-qPCR.

Results: Among the pets tested, 0/16 dogs and 2/15 cats were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Interestingly, the two positive cats were owned by two unrelated asymptomatic veterinary students, which, therefore, post a warning to veterinarians worldwide.

Conclusion: The findings herein indicate that cats may act as sentinels for human cases, particularly sharing households with asymptomatic human cases. Although with small sampling and convenient recruiting, the presence of infected cats by SARS-CoV-2 was most likely due to close cat-human contact with positive owners, posting a human-animal health threat when pets share the same bed and interact with owners without protection, particularly during owner self-isolation. Thus, infected owners should follow the same human preventive guidelines with their pets to avoid spreading infection. Keywords: Brazil, coronavirus, domestic animals, pandemic.

Keywords: Brazil, coronavirus, domestic animals, pandemic.

How to cite this article: da Silva Epifanio I, dos Santos Rodrigues D, de Lima LB, de Azevedo Nogueira MA, do Monte Pessoa Felix LR, de Almeida BF, da Silva Farias CK, de Carvalho OV, de Cassia Carvalho Maia R, Ristow LE, Barbosa DS, Galhardo JA, Pettan-Brewer C, Kmetiuk LB, Agopian RG, Dutra V, de Morais HA, dos Santos AP, Biondo AW, Brandespim DF (2021) First report of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 detection in two asymptomatic cats in the state of Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil, Veterinary World, 14(10): 2839-2842.

Received: 08-06-2021 Accepted: 24-09-2021 Published online: 31-10-2021

Corresponding author: Alexander Welker Biondo E-mail: abiondo@ufpr.br

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2021.2839-2842

Copyright: da Silva Epifanio, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.