Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 in domesticated animals and its potential of transmission: A meta-analysis

Background and Aim: The coronavirus diseases-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global lockdown, which has
limited the mobility of the public, and thus, more time is spent with their pets. Unfortunately, many social media have
blamed pet animals as a reservoir of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiologic agent of COVID-19, triggering a panic abandonment of pets. However, no article has summarized the information regarding the role of pets as SARS-CoV-2 reservoirs. This study aimed to evaluate the role of pets as a reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 on the basis of research papers (i.e., animal model, surveillance, and case report) published in 2020.

Materials and Methods: The review was conducted using articles from the PubMed database in 2020, using the keywords “COVID-19 in domesticated animals,” which were screened and analyzed. Only the data from research articles were mimicked and transformed to conduct a meta-analysis. The meta-analysis was conducted regarding the effects of inhabitation and viral shedding in pets. In this study, we used 95% confidence intervals.

Results: A total of 132 papers in PubMed were related to the keywords, whereas only 12 papers were appropriate to answer
the dynamics of the role of pets as the reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. Seven studies indicated the potential of cat-cat (4/7), human-cat (2/7), and human-dog (1/7) SARS-CoV-2 transmission. No study proved the presence of cat-human transmission. Another study showed that comingling did not affect SARS-CoV-2 viral shedding among a cat and dog. Furthermore, the viral shedding of cats and dogs caused asymptomatic manifestations and generated neutralizing antibodies within a short period of time.

Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 transmission is present in domesticated animals, especially in pet cats and dogs, and
transmission occurs between animals of the same species (cat-cat). The reverse zoonosis (zooanthroponosis) was
found from human to cat/dog (comingled) with asymptomatic clinical signs due to the representation of neutralizing
antibodies.