Quarantine or cull? Let hamsters live, say vets citing Hong Kong study that finds they stop shedding virus after 6 days
- Findings by team from University of Hong Kong’s medical school show golden hamsters stop shedding the virus through respiratory secretions after six days of isolation
- Author of study says, however, that findings are not totally applicable in the real-world setting as experiments showed the viral load decreased but was not entirely gone
Veterinary surgeons in Hong Kong are urging the government to stop culling hamsters and quarantine them instead, but an author of the study they cited to back their call has said the findings are not totally applicable in the real-world setting.
The research cited is an article by a team from the medical school of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), published in scientific journal Nature in 2020, which found that golden hamsters would stop shedding the virus through respiratory secretions after six days of isolation.
Dr Nicole Wyre, a specialist in avian and exotic companion mammals at Zodiac Pet and Exotic Hospital, a local private clinic, said the study provided a strong case against the mass culling of hamsters.
“So anyone who has a hamster in their homes for more than six days – if it has not been exposed to a new hamster and it hasn’t been exposed to a human with Covid-19, then they are not going to get Covid from their hamsters,” she said.
“But if you did a PCR test on their faeces, it could come up positive, but they are not infectious any more.”
A worker at a pet shop that sold hamsters in Causeway Bay had contracted Covid-19 and remains an untraceable case. The tally of confirmed cases in the pet shop cluster had grown to eight people as of Friday.