Scientific research
The susceptibility of domestic pet dogs to SARS-CoV-2.
In an article published on Nature, HKU SPH researchers documented the susceptibility of domestic dogs to SARS-CoV-2. They used different methods for viral detection and found that two out of fifteen dogs from households with confirmed human cases of COVID-19 in Hong Kong were infected with SARS-CoV-2 with no symptoms. Viral RNA has been detected in swabs collected from different body sites and on different days from these two infected dogs, while antibody responses were detected as well. They also found that viral genetic sequences of viruses from these two infected dogs were identical to the virus detected in the respective human cases. This showed the possibility of human-to-animal transmission of SARS-CoV-2, but remained unclear whether infected dogs can transmit the virus back to humans or on to other animals.
Read more about this paper here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2334-5_reference.pdf
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