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Hamsters caused a corona outbreak in Hong Kong – with the Delta variant
Hamsters sold as pets in Hong Kong may have sparked the coronavirus outbreak.
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A first investigation shows that a corona outbreak with the Delta variant in Hong Kong probably came from hamsters.
In January, around 2,000 hamsters from a pet shop in Hong Kong were killed for fear they could have caused a corona outbreak with the Delta variant in the metropolis. An investigation is now providing initial indications of this suspicion.
Researchers examined virus samples from the rodents in a genetic analysis. With the result: The corona outbreak in Hong Kong with the Delta variant probably came from hamsters that were sold as pets. The variant was not circulating in Hong Kong prior to the outbreak. Hong Kong is currently experiencing its worst corona wave, but it is not the delta variant that was detected in the hamsters, but the omicron variant.
In scientific studies, hamsters have already been used in laboratories to research the corona virus because they are easily infected with Sars-CoV-2. But the study, which has so far only been published as a preprint and has therefore not yet been checked by experts, now shows that hamsters can also become infected with Covid-19 outside of a laboratory. The coronavirus can circulate among hamsters, and they can also infect humans with it, according to the study. The researchers found that the hamsters examined were all infected with the Delta variant. The hamsters were imported from a supplier in the Netherlands in December and January, according to the Guardian. The study states: “Two separate events of transmission to humans have been documented and that such events can lead to further transmission to humans. Importation of infected hamsters was the most likely source of viral infection.“
Marion Koopmanns, a virologist at Erasmus University at the Medical Center in Rotterdam, explains that she is convinced that the delta variant in the animals was imported to Hong Kong. It’s important to track down the source of infection in hamsters, she told Nature. The virologist Arijanay Banerjee from the University of Saskatchewan, on the other hand, says that researchers cannot rule out that hamsters were first infected by a person in Hong Kong and therefore did not introduce the delta variant.
Hamsters aren’t the first animals to be culled over fears of coronavirus outbreaks. At the end of 2020, it was proven that mink can contract the corona virus from humans and then transmit it back to humans. Denmark then had all mink in the country killed in November 2020.
The latest study now highlights the pet trade as a way of spreading the virus, co-author Leo Poon, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, told Spectrum. “But to be fair to the hamsters,” Poon says, “people are much more likely to get infected from each other than from their pets.” The Virologion Marion Koopmanns nevertheless considers it important to closely monitor the pet trade, since Sars-CoV-2 can continue to circulate in animals and then spread back to humans.
Swell: Spektrum.de, Yen, H.-L. et al. preprint, Guardians, Nature