Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

The SARS-CoV-2 reproduction number R0 in cats

View ORCID ProfileJose L. Gonzales, Mart C.M. de Jong, Nora M. Gerhards, Wim H. M. Van der Poel
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.20.453027
Jose L. Gonzales
aDepartment of Epidemiology, Bioinformatics & animal models, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, Lelystad, The Netherlands
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Jose L. Gonzales
  • For correspondence: jose.gonzales@wur.nl
Mart C.M. de Jong
bQuantitative Veterinary Epidemiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Nora M. Gerhards
aDepartment of Epidemiology, Bioinformatics & animal models, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, Lelystad, The Netherlands
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Wim H. M. Van der Poel
bQuantitative Veterinary Epidemiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
cDepartment Virology & Molecular biology, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, Lelystad, The Netherlands
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

Domestic cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and given that they are in close contact with people, assessing the potential risk cats represent for the transmission and maintenance of SARS-CoV-2 is important. Assessing this risk implies quantifying transmission from humans-to-cats, from cats-to-cats and from cats-to-humans. Here we quantified the risk of cat-to-cat transmission by reviewing published literature describing transmission either experimentally or under natural conditions in infected households. Data from these studies were collated to quantify the SARS-CoV-2 reproduction number R0 among cats. The estimated R0 was significantly higher than 1, hence cats could play a role in the transmission and maintenance of SARS-CoV-2. Questions that remain to be addressed are the risk of transmission from humans-to-cats and cats-to-humans. Further data on household transmission and data on virus levels in both the environment around infected cats and their exhaled air could be a step towards assessing these risks.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted July 20, 2021.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
The SARS-CoV-2 reproduction number R0 in cats
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
The SARS-CoV-2 reproduction number R0 in cats
Jose L. Gonzales, Mart C.M. de Jong, Nora M. Gerhards, Wim H. M. Van der Poel
bioRxiv 2021.07.20.453027; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.20.453027
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
The SARS-CoV-2 reproduction number R0 in cats
Jose L. Gonzales, Mart C.M. de Jong, Nora M. Gerhards, Wim H. M. Van der Poel
bioRxiv 2021.07.20.453027; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.20.453027

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Microbiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4378)
  • Biochemistry (9569)
  • Bioengineering (7082)
  • Bioinformatics (24819)
  • Biophysics (12595)
  • Cancer Biology (9943)
  • Cell Biology (14332)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7941)
  • Ecology (12091)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15976)
  • Genetics (10913)
  • Genomics (14724)
  • Immunology (9857)
  • Microbiology (23615)
  • Molecular Biology (9471)
  • Neuroscience (50811)
  • Paleontology (369)
  • Pathology (1538)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2677)
  • Physiology (4005)
  • Plant Biology (8651)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1508)
  • Synthetic Biology (2388)
  • Systems Biology (6420)
  • Zoology (1345)