First genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 recovered from an infected cat and its owner in Latin America.
Renata Santiago Alberto CarlosAna Paula Melo MarianoBianca Mendes MacielSandra Rocha GadelhaMylene de Melo SilvaEmilia Maria Medeirosde Andrade BelitardoDanilo Jobim Passos Gil RochaJoão Paulo Pereira de AlmeidaLuis Gustavo Carvalho PachecoEric Roberto Guimarães Rocha AguiarHllytchaikra Ferraz FehlbergGeorge Rego AlbuquerquePublished in: Transboundary and emerging diseases (2021)
An 11-year-old male mixed-breed cat, with exclusively indoor life, presented 3 cough episodes after the owners tested positive by RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2. The house is inhabited by 5 people (3 adults and 2 children), and 2 of the adults have shown mild symptoms associated with throat discomfort. The cat was vaccinated, had no history of any previous disease, and tested negative for feline coronavirus (FCoV), feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukaemia virus (FeLV). Rectal sample collected from the cat was positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. Viral genome sequences recovered from human and cat samples showed an average 99.4% sequence identity. This is the first report of genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 recovered from a cat and its owner in Latin America.