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Case Reports
. 2024 Apr 16;16(4):617.
doi: 10.3390/v16040617.

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant (B.1.617.2) in Domestic Dogs and Zoo Tigers in England and Jersey during 2021

Amanda H Seekings  1   2 , Rebecca Shipley  1   2 , Alexander M P Byrne  1   3 , Shweta Shukla  1   2 , Megan Golding  1 , Joan Amaya-Cuesta  1 , Hooman Goharriz  1   2 , Ana Gómez Vitores  4 , Fabian Z X Lean  4 , Joe James  1 , Alejandro Núñez  4 , Alistair Breed  5 , Andrew Frost  6 , Jörg Balzer  7 , Ian H Brown  1 , Sharon M Brookes  1 , Lorraine M McElhinney  1   2
Affiliations
Case Reports

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant (B.1.617.2) in Domestic Dogs and Zoo Tigers in England and Jersey during 2021

Amanda H Seekings et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Reverse zoonotic transmission events of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have been described since the start of the pandemic, and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) designated the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in animals a reportable disease. Eighteen domestic and zoo animals in Great Britain and Jersey were tested by APHA for SARS-CoV-2 during 2020-2023. One domestic cat (Felis catus), three domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), and three Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) from a zoo were confirmed positive during 2020-2021 and reported to the WOAH. All seven positive animals were linked with known SARS-CoV-2 positive human contacts. Characterisation of the SARS-CoV-2 variants by genome sequencing indicated that the cat was infected with an early SARS-CoV-2 lineage. The three dogs and three tigers were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant of concern (B.1.617.2). The role of non-human species in the onward transmission and emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 remain poorly defined. Continued surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in relevant domestic and captive animal species with high levels of human contact is important to monitor transmission at the human-animal interface and to assess their role as potential animal reservoirs.

Keywords: Delta variant; SARS-CoV-2; cat; dog; reverse zoonosis; tiger.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences from positive animal cases in Great Britain and Jersey with representative human sequences obtained from GISAID from May 2020 to December 2021. Sequence from Submission 11 omitted in the analyses due to partial sequence obtained. The maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis was inferred using the General Time Reversible (GTR) substitution model with empirical base frequencies (+F) and four categories of rate variation (+R4) with a phylogeny test of 1000 ultrafast bootstrap replicates.
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