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A Panthera leo infect with SARS - CoV-2 at an Indiana zoo belike channelise the virus to at least two of the keepers that were caring for the big cat , a newfangled study shows . It is the first confirmed grammatical case of an infected zoo animal transmitting the coronavirus to a homo , researcher say . However , such transmittance is probably rare and in this case , probably resulted from the fact that the Leo needed to be feed by script , scientists wrote in the subject area .
It ’s long been have it off that SARS - CoV-2 , the computer virus that induce COVID-19 , can taint many specie , and that it can pass between humans and animals . The computer virus likely start from an animal to a homo in the first position , and past studies suggested thatpet cats and detent catch up with SARS - CoV-2 from ownersat extremely high rates . Other studies record thatdeer have transmitted the computer virus to humans , and septic hamsters in a Hong Kong darling shopsparked a human outbreak of the delta variant .
For the first time, scientists believe that a zoo animal transmitted COVID-19 to a human.
However , " animal to human transmittance of SARS - CoV-2 has not antecedently been account in a zoo determine , " researchers wrote in the report , which was posted Jan. 31 to the preprint databasemedRxiv . ( The results have not yet been peer - reviewed . )
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The nameless Africanlion(Panthera leo ) , which was around 20 days honest-to-god and resided at Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend , tested cocksure for SARS - CoV-2 in December 2021 after developing a coughing and becoming breathless . The 10 zookeepers who had been in cheeseparing contact with the infected felid were instantly tested and all of the tests amount back negative . But later in the calendar week , three of the keepers tested electropositive , having not come into middleman with any other septic man .
A zookeeper gets up close to a pair of lions at a zoo in Hungary in 2015.
In the new study , researchers genetically sequence viral samples collect from the Panthera leo and the septic zookeepers . The resultant role showed that the lion and two of the keepers shared a genetically superposable strain of the virus , but the third steward ’s sample could not be properly sequence .
The lion was aged — wild Panthera leo very seldom make it past their mid - teens — and suffered from a kidney disease and spinal retrogression , which meant that it needed to be hand fed . This significantly increased the chances that the keepers contracted the disease from the lion before it designate symptom . After the lion tested positive , keeper wore respirator when interact with the king of beasts and all other animals at the zoo .
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The researchers suspect the lion contracted SARS - CoV-2 from an symptomless zoo keeper . The lion had received two VD of anon - human COVID-19 vaccinein September and October 2021 .
COVID-19is particularly dangerous for felines , who share the same sense organ for the virus as humans , meaning that they can become extremely ominous or even die from the disease , New Scientistreported . The lion was euthanized several days after it tested positive , due to the severity of its symptoms .
Zoo animals and COVID-19
A wide variety of zoo animals have been infected by SARS - CoV-2 let in gorilla , snow leopards , hippos , hyaena and giraffes . The first zoological garden animal in the U.S. known to be infected with COVID-19 was atiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York Cityback in April 2021 .
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However , the risk of most homo contracting the computer virus from an animal remains very low-down and it is much more likely for humans to infect animals than the other way around , according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention .
" You would have to be in very secretive contact with such animals to get infected , " survey carbon monoxide gas - authorLeslie Boyer , the medical managing director of the Venom Immunochemistry , Pharmacology and Emergency Response ( VIPER ) Institute at The University of Arizona , told New Scientist . " People like vets , farmers [ and ] zookeepers who often exercise closely to the oral and pinched regions of these animals are most at danger to such transmission . "
