The world's first coronavirus-positive pet dog has died

After a recent serum test result that showed negative results, the dog diagnosed with new coronavirus infection in Hong Kong eventually died.

The new coronavirus is highly infectious from person to person, and it may become infected within close contact, but does this virus infect pets? A dog test in a confirmed patient in Hong Kong had a positive test result, causing a sensation.

Whether pets can infect the virus will affect many families with pets, so after the first test was positive, Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) arranged serum tests several times from late February. The result was negative.

The AFCD said that a negative serum test did not indicate that the dog was not infected with the virus. In the past, when humans were infected with other types of coronavirus, if there were no symptoms or the symptoms were mild, antibodies might not be produced in the body.

In addition, it usually takes 14 days or more for the body to produce enough antibodies to be measured, so test results during early infections may be negative. The AFCD will then arrange for a blood sample for the dog for further testing.

Unfortunately, the pet dog eventually died, and the AFCD confirmed that the pet dog had died on March 16.

"The department learned from the dog's owner that it had passed away on March 16," the department told  the South China Morning Post in a statement. "

However, the pet owner Zhou Qiaoer refused to perform an autopsy, so it was impossible to determine whether her pet dog had died due to the coronavirus.

"It is known in some asymptomatic or mild cases of human infections with other types of coronavirus that antibodies may not always develop," the AFCD told the outlet.

It is worth noting that this pet dog was 17 years old. It is old in dogs and the risk itself is very high.

The same is true in humans, because the new coronaviruses die mainly in older people over the age of 60, especially those with other diseases themselves.

Source

Special Report: Fighting The New Coronavirus