Senator claims dog tested positive to Covid in Australian first
Northern Territory Senator and former veterinarian Sam McMahon says a dog in Darwin has tested positive for COVID-19 via a rapid antigen test.
Senator McMahon conducted two telehealth appointments with the symptomatic pooch and believes the positive result marks the first case of its kind in Australia.
“It’s quite an unusual case … the dog appears to have contracted Covid from its owner,” Senator McMahon told ABC Radio Darwin.
However, animal virus expert Dr Farhid Hemmatzadeh said the tests were not accurate or reliable enough to test dogs - or any other species besides humans.
“[From] a scientific point of view, the [rapid antigen test] hasn’t been validated for use in any other animal species except humans,” Dr Hemmatzadeh told the ABC.
“Of course, the test detects the COVID-19 viral antigen, but regarding all unevaluated materials in dog nasal cavity, the results are not reliable as a valid test in dogs.”
Although cases of dogs contracting the virus that causes COVID-19 have been recorded elsewhere in the world, it is understood that there have been no recorded cases of Covid in dogs in Australia until now.
The symptomatic dog, a three-year-old crossbreed, developed a “loud cough” after its owner tested positive to Covid.
“They called me because their dog - which is young, healthy and fully vaccinated with routine canine vaccinations - was suddenly coughing,” Senator McMahon said.
The owner tested the dog for the virus using a rapid antigen test, which returned a positive result on February 9.
Senator McMahon said she was “satisfied that the owner had performed the test correctly and that the test was highly likely to be accurate”.
Though the Department of Agriculture’s animal health committee recommends testing animals at the CSIRO Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness to confirm whether they have COVID-19, Senator McMahon said no further tests were done on the dog in question “due to the owner’s Covid status”.
Given that pets seem to exhibit only mild symptoms of Covid if they test positive, there are currently no vaccines against the virus for pets, according to the RSPCA.
Dr Hemmatzadeh said it was uncommon for dogs to contract Covid, and that serious illness is “extremely rare”.
“The virus stays in the nasal cavity of the exposed dogs for a couple of days, and it will disappear when the dogs are not exposed to the virus from other people,” Dr Hemmatzadeh said.
Professor Glenn Browning, a veterinary microbiologist, said that some dogs may be susceptible to contracting Covid, but that there was no evidence of pets transmitting the virus to humans.
“People are the danger to the pets rather than pets being a danger to [their] owners,” Professor Browning said.
Senator McMahon said the dog has since made a full recovery.
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