Hamsters are only the second species known to have spread SARS-CoV-2 to humans.
Pet hamsters probably carried the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 into Hong Kong and sparked a human COVID-19 outbreak, according to a genomic analysis of viral samples from the rodents. The research confirms earlier fears that a pet shop was the source of the outbreak, which has so far infected about 50 people and led to the culling of some 2,000 hamsters across the city.
The latest study points to the pet trade as a route for viral spread, says co-author Leo Poon, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. But “to be fair to the hamsters”, people are still much more likely to be infected by each other than by pets, he says. Within days, public-health officials had swabbed more than 100 animals at the pet shop and another 500 at the warehouse supplying it. They detected SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA or antibodies against the virus in 15 of 28 Syrian hamsters , but in none of the dwarf hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas or mice.
Jumping between species The pet-shop worker and visitor were probably infected on separate occasions, and Poon says there could have been more jumps. Most surprising, he says, was that even after replicating in hamsters, the virus could still “transmit between humans quite effectively”.