HAMSTERS BEHIND DELTA VARIANT OUTBREAK IN HONG KONG, STUDY FINDS

Sat 12 March 2022:

The origin of the city’s Delta variant epidemic of Covid—imported hamsters appears to have been established by a Hong Kong study.

According to the research, Syrian hamsters were the cause of a local epidemic of the Delta variant two months ago, which was undertaken jointly by the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) school of public health and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.

They discovered that more than half of the 28 Syrian hamsters smuggled into the city from a pet shop and warehouse in Causeway Bay had COVID-19 infection, with full genome sequencing indicating infection in mid-October.

After discovering that hamsters can contract and spread COVID-19, researchers advocated for tighter animal import controls on Friday.

The study, published in The Lancet medical journal, also suggested that other animal species could also transmit Coronavirus to humans, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

“These findings highlight that SARS-CoV-2 may be spilling over to other animal species unsuspected and providing an additional reservoir for the virus for further adaptation and zoonotic spillover back to humans,” the report read.

In January of this year, health officials ordered the culling of up to 2,000 imported hamsters, believing that animal-to-human transmissions of Covid were to blame for the outbreak in the city.

The Coronavirus was found in eleven samples obtained from hamsters in a Causeway Bay pet store, and the shop’s staff, a customer, and her husband were all proven to be afflicted.

Authorities reported at the time that the initial illnesses, along with others related to two pet stores in Mong Kok and Tai Po, resulted in future human-to-human transmissions.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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