Why Pet Hamsters Are the Latest Suspect in Coronavirus Outbreaks

You can add pet hamsters to the lengthy record of animals identified to hold the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Officials in Hong Kong say they’ve confirmed an outbreak involving hamsters and people that was traced again to a pet store, although it’s not clear whether or not these hamsters transmitted the virus to individuals. With a lot controversy, Hong Kong is now planning to cull round 2,000 imported pet hamsters and different rodents, they usually’re calling for house owners who not too long ago purchased these pets to submit them for testing and attainable euthanasia.

Early this week, officers at Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation division reported that at the least 11 hamsters and one worker on the Little Boss pet store in Causeway Bay had contracted the coronavirus, together with a buyer who visited the shop on January 7 (the shopper’s husband additionally examined optimistic not too long ago, the New York Times reported). On Thursday, they reported that two different individuals who visited pet shops had not too long ago gotten contaminated, and contaminated hamsters have been discovered at that location as effectively. Traces of the virus additionally appeared to have been discovered at considered one of the warehouses the place these hamsters have been being saved previous to their arrival on the retailer.

Officials have careworn that it’s not sure whether or not the hamsters have been accountable for the human instances linked to the pet retailer. But Hong Kong has remained one of many few areas nonetheless intent on aggressively limiting the unfold of the virus as a lot as attainable. After the invention of those instances, officers introduced the culling of hamsters, guinea pigs, and different rodents throughout all pet outlets that had been imported since December 22, 2021.

“They’re excreting the virus, and the virus can infect other animals, other hamsters and also human beings,” Thomas Sit, assistant director of Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation, informed the New York Times. “We don’t want to cull all the animals, but we have to protect public health and animal health. We have no choice—we have to make a firm decision.”

Many animal species will be contaminated by the coronavirus, together with cats, canine, deer, and minks. And within the lab at the least, hamsters have been efficiently contaminated with the virus as effectively. In many of those documented instances, although, people have been those accountable for the preliminary outbreak, and the chance of animal-to-human transmission has been thought of very uncommon. That mentioned, another international locations have taken related culling measures throughout the pandemic. Notably, Denmark killed off its total farmed mink inhabitants—round 17 million animals—final 12 months following the invention of quickly spreading outbreaks on mink farms, together with evidence that minks had transmitted the virus again to human staff.

Denmark’s determination wasn’t universally praised on the time, and neither is Hong Kong’s. Local animal rights groups and citizens have criticized the culling together with the federal government’s push to have pet house owners hand over any rodents imported since late December—the newest signal of tension over the Hong Kong’s zero-covid insurance policies. Some volunteer teams are even actively making an attempt to rescue hamsters marked for dying. But for now, the federal government doesn’t seem like altering tack. Yesterday, officers with the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department made clear that they’d oppose public efforts to avoid wasting the hamsters, which might embrace police intervention.