2nd SARS-Cov-2 Positive Dog in Hong Kong: Update

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   By Scott Weese on April 9, 2020

More information is available from the OIE (World Organization for Animal Health) about the 2nd dog in Hong Kong that was identified as positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The dog is a 2yr old German Shepherd from a household with an infected person that, along with another dog from the household, was isolated and tested by Hong Kong authorities. 

It was quarantined Mar 18, and had positive test results on Mar 18, 19 and 20. It also had antibodies against the virus in its blood and the virus was isolated. (It’s not clear what samples the virus was isolated from, but virus isolation provides solid confirmation that the dog was infected.)

The dog remained healthy and had negative test results after those first three positive tests.

 That’s consistent with the assumption that dogs are of relatively low susceptibility to the virus and don’t shed long if they happen to become infected; however, we don’t know when the dog started shedding. We know it shed for at least 3 days, but don’t know if it started Mar 18 (the day the first sample was taken) or earlier.

The other dog from the house remained negative on all tests.

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Tabitha111 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Adviser Group Joined: January 11 2020 Location: Virginia Status: Offline Points: 11640	Post Options Post Reply Quote Tabitha111 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: 2nd SARS-Cov-2 Positive Dog in Hong Kong: Update Posted: April 09 2020 at 7:31am
	By Scott Weese on April 9, 2020 More information is available from the OIE (World Organization for Animal Health) about the 2nd dog in Hong Kong that was identified as positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The dog is a 2yr old German Shepherd from a household with an infected person that, along with another dog from the household, was isolated and tested by Hong Kong authorities. It was quarantined Mar 18, and had positive test results on Mar 18, 19 and 20. It also had antibodies against the virus in its blood and the virus was isolated. (It’s not clear what samples the virus was isolated from, but virus isolation provides solid confirmation that the dog was infected.) The dog remained healthy and had negative test results after those first three positive tests. That’s consistent with the assumption that dogs are of relatively low susceptibility to the virus and don’t shed long if they happen to become infected; however, we don’t know when the dog started shedding. We know it shed for at least 3 days, but don’t know if it started Mar 18 (the day the first sample was taken) or earlier. The other dog from the house remained negative on all tests.
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