Animal-to-human transmission COVID-19 cases
Updated: May 28, 2020
This month the first two COVID-19 animal-to-human transmission cases have been reported by the Dutch authorities.
Minks which are bred for their fur are believed to have passed SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19 to humans on the mink farms in the Netherlands.
Minks on 2 Dutch farms started showing shortness of breath and digestive problems around the third week of April 2020. By the end of April, one farm lost 2.4% of the animals and the other 1.2 per cent respectively.
Last month there were 4 cases of pets (3 cats and 1 dog) being infected with COVID-19 from their owners in the Netherlands.
Worldwide so far a pet cat in Belgium and at least 8 big cats at the Bronx Zoo in New York were reported to have contracted COVID-19 from humans.
It was previously thought that only human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was possible.
We now have suspected cases of animal-to-human transmission.
It still remains a mystery what animals humans got SARS-CoV-2 from initially, and among the suspected species remain bats and pangolins.
Whereas most scientists agree that bats were the original source of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) causing COVID-19, there is no mutual agreement to date on what intermediary host was from which the virus jumped to humans.
Forum discussion is here: https://www.topimpactfactor.com/forum/pet-world