Cats can possibly spread the new coronavirus among themselves, an international team of researchers including from the University of Tokyo has announced.
The team's paper was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.
According to University of Tokyo Prof. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a specialist in virology and a team member, an experiment was conducted at a U.S. university on cats that were inoculated with the virus taken from humans. Three virus-infected cats were each paired with a cat with no previous infection with the virus. Each pair was kept in the same cage. Two to five days later, the virus was detected from the noses of all three previously uninfected cats.
"The results of this study do not indicate that the infection is transmitted from cats to humans," Kawaoka said.
However, he added, "It's better to keep pet cats indoors."
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Prof. Tetsuya Mizutani, a virology specialist who was not involved in the research, said: "In the experiment, there were no noticeable symptoms in the cats, and the cats were unlikely to become seriously ill. But it is still better to try to keep a reasonable distance from cats [in order to avoid humans transmitting the virus to cats]."
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