Pneumonia outbreak in China, better known as COVID-19, was caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and since March 9, 2020, has been declared a pandemic. Based on WHO data on December 27, 2021, 276,436,619 people worldwide and 4,261,208 people in Indonesia were confirmed with COVID-19. Until now COVID-19 is still a global concern. The emergence of COVID-19 from a wet market in China is thought to have originated from animals. Based on genetic analysis, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is related to viruses isolated from Rhinolopous bats.
It caused concern for pet owners, whether their pets have the potential to be infected and transmit COVID-19. Reporting from the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) website, reports showed several pets are infected naturally or experimentally, including cats, Syrian hamsters, ferrets, and dogs. However, from all of these pets, no transmission to humans has been reported.
Although there has been no evidence of transmission from pets to humans, animal owners are advised to remain vigilant and implement several preventive measures, including:
- Improved hygiene
- Animal owners should be vaccinated
- Limiting contact with humans infected with COVID-19 and being updated to the latest information.
Improved hygiene can be in the form of maintaining the cleanliness of the animal cages, such as cleaning feces and urine immediately, animal owners should also wash their hands with soap before and after touching animals. Vaccination against COVID-19 for animal owners provides many benefits for themselves and the animals.
Limit contact with humans or animals confirmed with COVID-19. It has been reported that some animals such as cats, ferrets, and Syrian hamsters are capable of transmitting to their groups, although human-to-animal transmission remains to be seen.
Future research is needed because what we know today may be different from what will happen in the future, as it is known that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is always trying to survive by mutating.
Therefore, as an animal owner, you should always be updated to information and wisely sort and ensure the authenticity of the information by conducting a more in-depth analysis with the experts. There is a quote in the article “Philosophy, Corona and Our Panic” by Andri Fransiskus Gultom that “as individuals, the logic of short time can lead us to become Don Quixote, a fictitious man by Cervantes who has obtained information from reading results, then we feel like part of that reading and then act silly. It can reflect that self-protection and the sanity to not rush into panic becomes very important. Because in panic, irrationality is the dominant one”.
By:
Ahmad Aswin (S2 Vaksinologi dan Imunoterapetika, Fakultas Kedokteran Hewan)
