Covid from a cat to a man as recorded by a Thai studio “is possible, but I believe it is a very remote eventuality and very low risk“. This is what Matteo Bassetti, head of Infectious Diseases at the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa told time.news Salute.” instead of considering scientific study, attention is drawn to the risk that animals can infect. A catastrophic vision, very typical of the Italian press “, remarks Bassetti.
The study, reported by ‘Nature’, reconstructs when it happened to a veterinarian. In August, a father and son who tested positive for the pandemic Coronavirus were transferred to an isolation ward at the Prince of Songkla University hospital. Their cat, a 10-year-old tabby, was also swabbed and tested positive. During the test, iThe cat sneezed in front of a vet wearing a mask and gloves, but no eye protection. Three days later the vet developed fever, cold and cough; he later tested positive for Sars-CoV-2, but none of his close contacts developed Covid-19, suggesting that the source of his infection was the cat. The genetic analysis then confirmed that the veterinarian was infected with the same variant that had infected the animal and its owners: the sequences were identical.