TY - JOUR T1 - Absence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in cats and dogs in close contact with a cluster of COVID-19 patients in a veterinary campus JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.04.07.029090 SP - 2020.04.07.029090 AU - Sarah Temmam AU - Alix Barbarino AU - Djérène Maso AU - Sylvie Behillil AU - Vincent Enouf AU - Christèle Huon AU - Ambre Jaraud AU - Lucie Chevallier AU - Marija Backovic AU - Philippe Pérot AU - Patrick Verwaerde AU - Laurent Tiret AU - Sylvie van der Werf AU - Marc Eloit Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/09/2020.04.07.029090.abstract N2 - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which originated in Wuhan, China, in 2019, is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now accepted that the wild fauna, probably bats, constitute the initial reservoir of the virus, but little is known about the role pets can play in the spread of the disease in human communities, knowing the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to infect some domestic animals. We tested 21 domestic pets (9 cats and 12 dogs) living in close contact with their owners (belonging to a veterinary community of 20 students) in which two students tested positive for COVID-19 and several others (n = 11/18) consecutively showed clinical signs (fever, cough, anosmia, etc.) compatible with COVID-19 infection. Although a few pets presented many clinical signs indicative for a coronavirus infection, no animal tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR and no antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 were detectable in their blood using an immunoprecipitation assay. These original data can serve a better evaluation of the host range of SARS-CoV-2 in natural environment exposure conditions. ER -