SARS-CoV-2–Specific Antibodies in Domestic Cats during First COVID-19 Wave, Europe
Claudia Schulz, B Martina, Monica Mirolo, Elisabeth Müller, Ruth Klein, Holger A. Volk, Herman Egberink, Mariana González-Hernández, Franziska Kaiser, Maren von Köckritz‐Blickwede, Albert Osterhaus
Abstract
S evere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, causes high rates of illness and death among humans. SARS-CoV-2 is a newly recognized member of the genus Betacoronavirus, family Coronaviridae, that infects humans. An early serosurvey among domestic cats in Wuhan, China, during January-March 2020 reported 14.7% seropositivity (1). Experimental infections demonstrated susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection in cats and other carnivore species, such as ferrets (Mustela putorius furo), minks (Neovison vison), and to a lesser extent domestic dogs (2,3), and confi rmed anecdotal observations of naturally occurring human-to-animal transmissions (4,5). Respiratory and gastrointestinal signs were observed in SARS-CoV-2-infected cats (6-8). We conducted a seroprevalence study for SARS-CoV-2-specifi c antibodies among domestic cats in Europe during and after the fi rst COVID-19 pandemic wave, using a plaque-reduction virus neutralization test (VNT) and a SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain-specifi c ELISA (RBD-ELISA).