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A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy

Cats are susceptible to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Whilst a number of studies have been performed worldwide on owned cats, limited data are available on stray, colony or shelter cats. We investigated SARS-CoV-2 infection in a stray cat population bef...

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Autores principales: Spada, Eva, Vitale, Fabrizio, Bruno, Federica, Castelli, Germano, Reale, Stefano, Perego, Roberta, Baggiani, Luciana, Proverbio, Daniela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8066308/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33916759
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v13040618
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author Spada, Eva
Vitale, Fabrizio
Bruno, Federica
Castelli, Germano
Reale, Stefano
Perego, Roberta
Baggiani, Luciana
Proverbio, Daniela
author_facet Spada, Eva
Vitale, Fabrizio
Bruno, Federica
Castelli, Germano
Reale, Stefano
Perego, Roberta
Baggiani, Luciana
Proverbio, Daniela
author_sort Spada, Eva
collection PubMed
description Cats are susceptible to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Whilst a number of studies have been performed worldwide on owned cats, limited data are available on stray, colony or shelter cats. We investigated SARS-CoV-2 infection in a stray cat population before and during human outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 in cities in the Lombardy region in northern Italy, a high endemic region for SARS-CoV-2, using serological and molecular methods. A cohort of different samples were collected from 241 cats, including frozen archived serum samples from 136 cats collected before the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and serum, pharyngeal and rectal swab samples from 105 cats collected during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. All pre-pandemic samples tested seronegative for antibodies against the nucleocapsid of SARS-CoV-2 using indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, while one serum sample collected during the pandemic was seropositive. No serological cross-reactivity was detected between SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and antibodies against feline enteric (FECV) and infectious peritonitis coronavirus (FIPC), Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), Feline Calicivirus (FCV), Feline Herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1), Feline Parvovirus (FPV), Leishmania infantum, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Rickettsia spp., Toxoplasma gondii or Chlamydophila felis. No pharyngeal or rectal swab tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA on real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR). Our data show that SARS-CoV-2 did infect stray cats in Lombardy during the COVID-19 pandemic, but with lower prevalence than found in owned cats. This should alleviate public concerns about stray cats acting as SARS-CoV-2 carriers.
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spelling pubmed-80663082021-04-25 A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy Spada, Eva Vitale, Fabrizio Bruno, Federica Castelli, Germano Reale, Stefano Perego, Roberta Baggiani, Luciana Proverbio, Daniela Viruses Article Cats are susceptible to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Whilst a number of studies have been performed worldwide on owned cats, limited data are available on stray, colony or shelter cats. We investigated SARS-CoV-2 infection in a stray cat population before and during human outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 in cities in the Lombardy region in northern Italy, a high endemic region for SARS-CoV-2, using serological and molecular methods. A cohort of different samples were collected from 241 cats, including frozen archived serum samples from 136 cats collected before the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and serum, pharyngeal and rectal swab samples from 105 cats collected during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. All pre-pandemic samples tested seronegative for antibodies against the nucleocapsid of SARS-CoV-2 using indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, while one serum sample collected during the pandemic was seropositive. No serological cross-reactivity was detected between SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and antibodies against feline enteric (FECV) and infectious peritonitis coronavirus (FIPC), Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), Feline Calicivirus (FCV), Feline Herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1), Feline Parvovirus (FPV), Leishmania infantum, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Rickettsia spp., Toxoplasma gondii or Chlamydophila felis. No pharyngeal or rectal swab tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA on real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR). Our data show that SARS-CoV-2 did infect stray cats in Lombardy during the COVID-19 pandemic, but with lower prevalence than found in owned cats. This should alleviate public concerns about stray cats acting as SARS-CoV-2 carriers. MDPI 2021-04-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8066308/ /pubmed/33916759 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v13040618 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Spada, Eva
Vitale, Fabrizio
Bruno, Federica
Castelli, Germano
Reale, Stefano
Perego, Roberta
Baggiani, Luciana
Proverbio, Daniela
A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy
title A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy
title_full A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy
title_fullStr A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy
title_full_unstemmed A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy
title_short A pre- and during Pandemic Survey of Sars-Cov-2 Infection in Stray Colony and Shelter Cats from a High Endemic Area of Northern Italy
title_sort pre- and during pandemic survey of sars-cov-2 infection in stray colony and shelter cats from a high endemic area of northern italy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8066308/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33916759
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v13040618
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