NEW YORK: A tiger at New York´s Bronx Zoo has tested positive for COVID-19, the institution said Sunday, and is believed to have contracted the virus from a caretaker who was asymptomatic at the time.
The four-year-old Malayan tiger named Nadia along with her sister Azul, two Amur tigers and three African lions all developed dry coughs and are expected to fully recover, the Wildlife Conservation Society that runs the city´s zoos said in a statement.
"We tested the cat out of an abundance of caution and will ensure any knowledge we gain about COVID-19 will contribute to the world´s continuing understanding of this novel coronavirus," the statement sent to AFP said. "Though they have experienced some decrease in appetite, the cats at the Bronx Zoo are otherwise doing well under veterinary care and are bright, 2alert, and interactive with their keepers,” it said.
“It is not known how this disease will develop in big cats since different species can react differently to novel infections, but we will continue to monitor them closely and anticipate full recoveries.”
All four of the zoos and the aquarium in New York — where the virus death toll has topped 4,000 — have been closed since March 16. The zoo emphasised that there is “no evidence that animals play a role in the transmission of COVID-19 to people other than the initial event in the Wuhan market, and no evidence that any person has been infected with COVID-19 in the US by animals, including by pet dogs or cats.”
According to the US Department of Agriculture website there had “not been reports of pets or other animals” in the United States falling ill with coronavirus prior to news of tiger Nadia. “It is still recommended that people sick with COVID-19 limit contact with animals until more information is known about the virus,” the department´s website says.
The Bronx zoo said preventative measures were in place for caretakers as well as all cats in the city´s zoos.
Sarah Caddy, veterinarian and clinical research fellow at the University of Cambridge, said that since domestic cats had been shown to be potentially susceptible to the virus, the tiger becoming infected was “not wholly unexpected”. “However, it is surprising that the tiger has become infected with what must have been a fairly low dose of virus — we can assume the tiger did not have continual close contact with the asymptomatic zoo keeper,” she said.
Saad was of the view that the battle of politics should be fought solely through political means
KP govt decided to develop gemstone business as a formal export sector and cluster at the Namak Mandi would be...
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Higher Education, Archives, and Libraries, Meena Khan Afridi. — APP FilePESHAWAR:...
Vehicles and horse carts passing through flood water at Bara Bazar area on Khuwani bridge after heavy rain in Peshawar...
Amid the failure to revive the cash-bleeding PIA, government is left with no other option but to sell it to any...
Picture showing the Silver Jubilee Gate of the University of Karachi. — APP File KARACHI: The University of Karachi...