The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its smallpox guide to include dogs as animals that can spread the virus. The CDC changed its guidelines after the first case of a pet dog suspected of contracting the virus from its owners was documented in France.
Scientists said in a paper published in the medical journal The Lancet last week that they had found evidence of human-to-dog transmission of monkeypox. Before that, it was unclear whether the virus could spread to dogs.
Monkey pox was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization on 23 June. It is spread between humans through close contact with injuries or body fluids, and is spreading in the United States and Europe among people who have not traveled to the areas. where it is known to be endemic.
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The case in France involved two male couples who lived together and were not sexually exclusive. The men started showing chicken pox symptoms a few days after sleeping with other partners.
Twelve days after he first showed symptoms, his dog, a four-year-old Italian greyhound, also developed lesions and later tested positive for the monkeypox virus.
The men reported sleeping next to their dog, although they said they had been careful to keep it from coming into contact with other people or pets since their own smallpox symptoms began.
In countries where monkeypox is endemic, wild animals, including rodents and primates, can carry the virus. Captive primates in Europe have also contracted monkeypox from contact with imported animals that were ill, but infections in domestic animals such as dogs and cats have not previously been reported.
“To the best of our knowledge, the kinetics of symptom onset in both patients and subsequently in their dog suggest human-to-dog transmission of monkeypox virus,” the researchers said in the study. published in The Lancet.
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The researchers called for more research into secondary transmission of monkeypox through pets.
“Our results should prompt a debate about the need to isolate pets from monkeypox virus-positive individuals,” they wrote.
The CDC recommends that people with monkeypox avoid close contact with animals and that pets that have not been exposed to the virus be cared for by friends or family in another home until the owner or owners have fully recovered.
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Haley Ott is a reporter/digital producer for CBS News based in London.