Monday 22 March 2021

Pet (Heart) Sounds

Luca Ferasin works in a Specialist Veterinary Hospital in Buckinghamshire. He has speculated, that the rising incidence of myocarditis in cats and dogs, can be linked to infection with the B117 (Kent) variant of Covid-19 (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/21/vets-warn-new-covid-variant-heart-problems-pets-cats-dogs). As in humans, inflammation of the heart muscle is life-threatening for companion animals. Prior to the Kent variant, cats and dogs only seemed to evidence a respiratory infection when their owners had Covid-19. Ferasin maintains he is only talking about human to pet transmission and not vice versa. This seems, however, just the statement a vet is likely to make. If you can catch Sars-CoV-2 from a mink, you can certainly catch it from a cat or a dog. In fact, animal to human transmission is more likely as contacts are closer. Humans may be less likely to show myocarditis but this is not certain.

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