2023-08-03 14:18:10
A study from the Complutense University concludes that the coronavirus is spread from humans to pets but not vice versa. In this way, it is ruled out that animals have contributed to the spread of covid during the pandemic.
A woman runs with her dog along a beach in Palma de Mallorca. EFE / Cati Cladera
This has been demonstrated by researchers from the University of Madrid in the framework of the projects COV20/01385 and ANTICIPA-UCMin which they have reflected that pets are infected with coronavirus from sick people, both through the respiratory and digestive tracts.
Once infected, pets shed low loads of coronavirus, but researchers have not observed transmission between pets.
They also pose no risk to people. Instead, humans can infect animals. The virus can spread from people to animals through close contact.
The investigation has included more than 2,500 animals and more than 5,000 samples of pets that “had lived with healthy people (not infected) or covid patients have been analyzed. Within this project in the Community of Madrid, more than 1,100 samples have been analyzed for PCR to date”.
Professor Lucía de Juan Ferré, from the Health Surveillance Research Group of the VISAVET Center of the Complutense has led the investigation.
Mild picture in pets
According to research, the disease in animals infected with the coronavirus manifests itself mildly, with respiratory effects “very similar” to those described in humans and with a low risk of spreading it by pets.
Infographic provided by the Complutense University.
The COVID-LOT program
The publication compiles the results of the management of the COVID LOT program, designed and developed since December 2020, the year in which the pandemic was declared. The objective was to maintain a preventive survey of infectivity by the coronavirus in the Complutense university community, reports the Madrid university.
In this way, the periodic analysis of large groups of students and university staff has made it possible to maintain “safely” the face-to-face development throughout these years of many of the academic, teaching and research activities, detecting and preventing the appearance and spread of foci.
COVID-LOT has managed until July of this year the extraction, processing and analysis of around 200,000 saliva samples of people belonging to the community of this Madrid university.
Thus, it has been achieved detect 2,000 positives for SARS-Cov-2“a large part of them asymptomatic”, with which it was possible to prevent the spread of infection and a significant reduction in exposure of the most vulnerable groups.
“Sole witness” since 2022
According to the university, the infectivity data provided by the project have reflected in a “completely parallel” way the evolution at the national level, and, fundamentally, of the Community of Madrid in the different waves of the pandemic.
COVID-LOT, explains the Complutense, has remained the “sole witness” of the evolution of the infectivity of the covid since March 28 of last year, when the public data on it in the general population were reduced.
In addition, the genomic analysis of the samples collected during the pandemic will allow the elaboration of the map of coronavirus variants in the different waves. It will also make it easier to present a complete diagnosis of the COVID situation for the fourth autumn-winter period from the start of the health crisis.
The publication of the ANTICIPA-UCM research project is part of the communication and health education strategy, which is managed by subprogram 7 of the project.
Among the lines that it develops is the Complutense Observatory of Emerging Infections that monitors covid infectivity, which provides data in real time thanks to the system COVID-LOT.
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