Even rats can be infected with Covid. A study carried out on a sample of 79 rats captured in 2021 in different locations in Brooklyn proves it. The research, published by mBio, the journal of the American Academy of Microbiology, showed that 13 rodents, or 16.5% of the sample, had antibodies to covid-19, suggesting their past infection. Two of the rats tested positive, but without symptoms.
The researchers also infected rats in the lab with different variants, showing that the rodents are susceptible to the alpha, delta and omicron variants. It’s the first time rats’ susceptibility to the variants has been shown, says Dr. Henri Wu, lead author of the study and director of the Center for Influenza and Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Missouri. At the moment it is not yet clear how the rats became infected, whether animal-to-animal transmission is possible, and whether a rat can infect a human being. It is also unknown whether the virus still continues to circulate among New York rats.
“More studies are needed to answer these critical questions,” notes study co-author Dr. Thomas DeLiberto, assistant director of the National Wildlife Research Center. It’s not the first time that there have been cases of covid between domestic or wild animals, but so far animal-to-human contagion cases are rare.