Health
Hamsters can transmit Covid to humans, data suggests | Coronavirus
Pet hamsters can transmit Covid to humans and are the likely source of a recent outbreak of the Delta variant in Hong Kongdata suggests.
The research confirms fears that a pet shop was the source of a recent Covid outbreak in the city, which has seen at least 50 people infected and led to the culling of more than 2,200 hamsters.
However, virologists emphasized that, although the pet trade could provide a route for viral spread, existing pet hamsters are unlikely to pose a threat to their owners and should not be harmed.
Many animals Hamsters are particularly vulnerable to the virus – are susceptible to catching Covid from humans, but until now, only one – the mink – has proved capable of transmitting it in the opposite direction. dwarf Roborovski hamsters can die from it – so have been widely used as a model for studying the disease.
Concerns that hamsters might also be capable of infecting humans first surfaced when a 23-year-old worker at the Little Boss pet shop in Hong Kong tested positive for Covid on 15 January – the city’s first Delta variant diagnosis for more than three months. A woman who visited the pet shop was also infected, and other members of her family tested positive in the days that followed.
In response, public-health officials swabbed hundreds of rodents at the pet shop and at the warehouse supplying it. Viral genetic material or antibodies were detected in 15 of the 28 Syrian hamsters, but in none of the dwarf hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits or chinchillas tested. None of the hamsters had overt symptoms.
After coronavirus was detected in the hamsters, Prof Leo Poon, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, and his colleagues undertook further viral genome sequencing, which revealed that the hamsters were all infected with the Delta variant, and that their viruses were closely related The nature of the mutations contained within these viruses suggested that transmission had been going on for some time – possibly since mid-November. The hamsters were imported from a supplier in the Netherlands during December and January.
Meanwhile, analysis of samples from the pet shop worker and infected customer suggested that their viruses were closely related to the hamster viruses, but that they were unlikely to have transmitted the infection to each other.