A pug in North Carolina may be the first dog in the US to test positive for coronavirus, researchers said.
Sam McLean, his wife Heather, and their child, Ben, tested positive for coronavirus last month. The couple’s daughter, Sydney, was the only family member to never develop any symptoms.
But after they participated in a Duke University study about coronavirus, they found out that their pug, Winston, also contracted the virus.
The principal investigator of the study, Chris Woods, said researchers have also been collecting samples from pets to determine how the virus spreads in households.
Even though researchers have not tested many family pets, the pug’s sample is the only one that came back positive. According to the university, Winston is believed to be the first dog in the United States to test positive for coronavirus.
“His (Winston’s) amount of virus that we detected was very low, suggesting that he would not be a likely mechanism or vector of transmission of virus to either other animals or to, to humans in these households,” Woods explained.
Sam McLean, an ER doctor at the University of North Carolina, was the first member of the McLean family to develop symptoms.
Winston also showed minor symptoms while three members of his family were sick.
Ben told CNN: “He had a small cough for a day or two right in the peak when all of us were sick and he didn’t eat his breakfast one morning. But we didn’t have any concrete, like, super alarming illnesses where we’re like, ‘we need to take him to the vet. He’s like really sick.”
Heather McLean told WRAL: “Pugs are a little unusual in that they cough and sneeze in a very strange way. So it almost seems like he was gagging, and there was one day when he didn’t want to eat his breakfast, and if you know pugs you know they love to eat, so that seemed very unusual.”
The family has another dog and a cat, whose tests came back negative.
This comes after federal officials announced that two cats in New York tested positive for coronavirus.
Experts have stressed that there’s no evidence that pets play a role in transmitting the virus. “I would not change our, our behaviors with our household animals at this point. They’re really an important part of our ongoing mental health as we continue to participate in our social distancing to combat the pandemic,” Woods added.
Heather McLean said Winston, who was only sick for a few days, is now doing well and is getting lots of fun with his loving family.
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