Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to pets in Washington and Idaho: burden and risk factors

  1. Julianne Meisner
  2. Timothy V. Baszler
  3. Kathryn H. Kuehl
  4. Vickie Ramirez
  5. Anna Baines
  6. Lauren A. Frisbie
  7. Eric T. Lofgren
  8. David M. DeAvila
  9. Rebecca M. Wolking
  10. Dan S. Bradway
  11. Hannah Wilson
  12. Beth Lipton
  13. Vance Kawakami
  14. Peter M. Rabinowitz

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Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 is believed to have emerged from an animal reservoir; however, the frequency of and risk factors for inter-species transmission remain unclear. We carried out a community-based study of pets in households with one or more confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans. Among 119 dogs and 57 cats with completed surveys, clinical signs consistent with SARS-CoV-2 were reported in 20 dogs (21%) and 19 cats (39%). Out of 81 dogs and 32 cats sampled for testing, 40% of dogs and 43% of cats were seropositive, and 5% of dogs and 8% of cats were PCR positive; this discordance may be due to delays in sampling. Respondents commonly reported close human-animal contact and willingness to take measures to prevent transmission to their pets. Reported preventative measures showed a slightly protective trend for both illness and seropositivity in pets, while sharing of beds and bowls had slight harmful effects.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2021.04.24.440952v2 on bioRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.24.440952: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethical approvals: This study and its protocols received ethical approval from the University of Washington’s Institutional Review Board STUDY00010585) and Office of Animal Welfare (PROTO201600308: 4355-01).
    Consent: Informed consent was obtained from human subjects via REDCap, or over the phone with the study coordinator if preferred by the participant, after the nature and possible consequences of study involvement had been explained.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The COHERE [7] and STROBE [8] statements were used to guide reporting of the findings and the preparation of this manuscript.
    COHERE
    suggested: (Cohere, RRID:SCR_006189)
    Animals with known fearful and/or aggressive behavior in response to restraint were excluded from sampling, however the corresponding household was not excluded from completing the REDCap survey, nor from animal sampling if other animals residing in the household were amenable to sampling.
    REDCap
    suggested: (REDCap, RRID:SCR_003445)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are several limitations to our approach. First, several weeks had elapsed from first reported exposure to household sample collection from animals in most households, limiting our ability to detect viral shedding by PCR testing if nasal shedding is short-lived, but perhaps strengthening our ability to detect seroconversion. Second, we report here on the findings of the cross-sectional (baseline) component of our study. Were any pets to test PCR positive, a longitudinal component would follow. As the outcomes are common, our prevalence odds ratios do not approximate prevalence ratios. Third, our study is subject to residual confounding due to inability to adjust for confounders without risking over-fitting, with the exception of house size, which was adjusted for house type. While we believe the confounders examined, most of which are also exposures of interest, are likely strong risk factors for the outcome, they are only strong confounders if they also have strong relationships with the exposure of interest. We do not expect this association to be strong for confounders that do not represent latent (and therefore difficult to measure and model) constructs, such as socioeconomic status, strength of the human-animal bond, and level of concern about zoonotic disease transmission. With the exception of PCR testing, mentioned above, we do not expect strong measurement error in any of the variables examined. As no gold-standard for canine anti-SARS-CoV-2 serology exists we c...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.04.24.440952v1 on bioRxiv