Hamsters in Hong Kong will be culled after an outbreak; Lions in a zoo in Pretoria get infected by Covid sparking fears of more variants (Image: Reuters)
Covid infections in animals have sparked fears that the virus can mutate and create new mutants which could re-infect humans.
- News18.com
- Last Updated:January 19, 2022, 2:32 PM IST
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Fears of Covid-19 mutating further after entering into animals from humans continue to remain after reports of such cases have surfaced from Hong Kong and South Africa.
Authorities in Hong Kong, which follows a zero-Covid policy in China, have ordered culling of over 2,000 hamsters and other small mammals from a pet shop in downtown Hong Kong. A report by news agency BBC outlined that authorities gathered at the Little Boss and carried away the hamsters in small boxes to euthanize them. The report also said that it asked people who bought hamsters from the shop since December 22 to report those rodents to the authorities for culling and have also set up a hamster hotline shop.
The decision was announced earlier on Tuesday after an outbreak of the Delta variant from the pet shop’s worker was detected. Authorities after conducting tests found that 11 hamsters have tested positive. Despite the less number of positive tests, more than thousands of rodents and small mammals will be culled as officials fear that it is a case of animal-to-human Covid transmission. Not only pets from the Little Boss but animals from 34 other pet shops will also be killed to contain any probable outbreak.
Covid Infected Lions Raise Alarm
Some lions and pumas at a zoo in South Africa capital Pretoria recently recovered after suffering from severe Covid-19, according to a report by news agency Bloomberg. Researchers from University of Pretoria in a statement earlier this week said that the big cats may have contracted the disease from the zoo authorities who were responsible for taking care of the animals.
The researchers in a study, accessed by Bloomberg, raised concerns that human-to-animal Covid transmission could happen and could also raise chances of more Covid-19 mutations which could affect the fight against the pandemic. “These measures are also important because of the risk of new variants emerging if the virus establishes itself in other animal reservoirs; these variants could be transmitted back to humans,” researchers Marietjie Venter and Katja Koeppel of University of Pretoria told Bloomberg.
The study said that in 2020 two pumas and three lions tested positive for Covid-19 and likely contracted the disease from asymptomatic zoo workers.
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