SARS-CoV-2 Infections and Viral Isolations among Serially Tested Cats and Dogs in Households with Infected Owners in Texas, USA
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Abstract
Understanding the ecological and epidemiological roles of pets in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is critical for animal and human health, identifying household reservoirs, and predicting the potential enzootic maintenance of the virus. We conducted a longitudinal household transmission study of 76 dogs and cats living with at least one SARS-CoV-2-infected human in Texas and found that 17 pets from 25.6% of 39 households met the national case definition for SARS-CoV-2 infections in animals. This includes three out of seventeen (17.6%) cats and one out of fifty-nine (1.7%) dogs that were positive by RT-PCR and sequencing, with the virus successfully isolated from the respiratory swabs of one cat and one dog. Whole-genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 obtained from all four PCR-positive animals were unique variants grouping with genomes circulating among people with COVID-19 in Texas. Re-sampling showed persistence of viral RNA for at least 25 d-post initial test. Additionally, seven out of sixteen (43.8%) cats and seven out of fifty-nine (11.9%) dogs harbored SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies upon initial sampling, with relatively stable or increasing titers over the 2–3 months of follow-up and no evidence of seroreversion. The majority (82.4%) of infected pets were asymptomatic. ‘Reverse zoonotic’ transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from infected people to animals may occur more frequently than recognized.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.08.416339: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Pet owners were administered a short questionnaire by phone including pet signalment (breed, age, sex), vaccination history, pet symptoms, date of positive human test result (which was cross-checked with BCHD), and were read the details of the informed consent form, after which a visit was arranged to sample the animal(s) at their household.
IACUC: All samples were obtained from privately-owned animals in adherence with animal use protocols approved by the Texas A&M University’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and Clinical Research Review Committee on May 14, 2020 (2018-0460 CA).Randomization not detected. Blinding Cell cultures with no CPE were … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.08.416339: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Pet owners were administered a short questionnaire by phone including pet signalment (breed, age, sex), vaccination history, pet symptoms, date of positive human test result (which was cross-checked with BCHD), and were read the details of the informed consent form, after which a visit was arranged to sample the animal(s) at their household.
IACUC: All samples were obtained from privately-owned animals in adherence with animal use protocols approved by the Texas A&M University’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and Clinical Research Review Committee on May 14, 2020 (2018-0460 CA).Randomization not detected. Blinding Cell cultures with no CPE were frozen, thawed and subjected to two blind passages, with inoculation of fresh cultures with the lysates as described above. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Cell Line Authentication not detected. Table 2: Resources
Experimental Models: Cell Lines Sentences Resources Vero (ATCC CCL-81) cells were inoculated with 1.5mL of diluted sample and adsorbed for 1 hour at 37°C. Verosuggested: NoneAt 1 hr post infection, 150 μL of Vero 76 cell suspension were added to the virus-serum mixtures. Vero 76suggested: IZSLER Cat# BS CL 101, RRID:CVCL_0603)Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Repeat specimen collections followed a minimum of one week from the date of initial sample collection and occurred up to three times per household within two months of the first specimen collection event. Repeatsuggested: (ProRepeat, RRID:SCR_006113)The alignment was used to output a phylogenetic tree using RAxML with GTRCAT model (25). RAxMLsuggested: (RAxML, RRID:SCR_006086)Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Study limitations include that it is unknown how many SARS-CoV-2-positive humans lived in each household, or their duration or nature of their symptoms while interacting with pets. Further, specimens or sequences from the human SARS-CoV-2 infections in the same households were not available for alignment with the sequences we generated from the pets, which would be useful for understanding transmission. Additionally, because animals associated with initial negative results in households with other negative animals were never re-sampled, we may have missed the detection of infection if animals seroconverted at a later date. The present study advances our understanding of the transmission risk between people and their pets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it underscores the need for a One Health approach (37), both in epidemiological investigations and in prevention and control measures as well as pandemic preparedness for SARS-CoV-2 and other emerging zoonotic infectious diseases.
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.
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