2026-04-17T04:30:00Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request

oai:recercat.cat:2117/3312312026-01-30T07:31:44Zcom_2072_1033col_2072_452950

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in a cat owned by a COVID-19−affected patient in Spain Segalés, Joaquim Puig, Mariona Rodon, Jordi Avila-Nieto, Carlos Carrillo, Jorge Cantero, Guillermo Terrón, Maria Teresa Cruz, Sílvia Parera, Mariona Noguera-Julián, Marc Izquierdo-Useros, Nuria Guallar, Victor Vidal, Enric Valencia, Alfonso Blanco, Ignacio Blanco, Julià Clotet, Bonaventura Vergara-Alert, Júlia Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Ciències de la salut COVID-19 (Disease) Transmission SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 Cat COVID-19 (Malaltia) Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological agent of COVID-19, is considered a zoonotic pathogen mainly transmitted human to human. Few reports indicate that pets may be exposed to the virus. The present report describes a cat suffering from severe respiratory distress and thrombocytopenia living with a family with several members affected by COVID-19. Clinical signs of the cat prompted humanitarian euthanasia and a detailed postmortem investigation to assess whether a COVID-19−like disease was causing the condition. Necropsy results showed the animal suffered from feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and severe pulmonary edema and thrombosis. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was only detected in nasal swab, nasal turbinates, and mesenteric lymph node, but no evidence of histopathological lesions compatible with a viral infection were detected. The cat seroconverted against SARS-CoV-2, further evidencing a productive infection in this animal. We conclude that the animal had a subclinical SARS-CoV-2 infection concomitant to an unrelated cardiomyopathy that led to euthanasia. We appreciate the collaboration of Esther Zamora, Carla Zamora, and their relatives, the owners of Negrito (C1) and Whisky (C2). We also thank Mónica Pérez from IRTA-CReSA for the histopathology laboratory work, and M. Pilar Armengol and the translational genomics platform team at the Institut de Recerca Germans Trias i Pujol for the sequencing studies. We also acknowledge the crowdfunding initiative of IrsiCaixa, https://www.yomecorono.com. Peer Reviewed Postprint (published version) 2020-10 Article https://www.pnas.org/content/117/40/24790 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Open Access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Spain Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) National Academy of Sciences