FILE - This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak. Two children have been diagnosed with monkeypox in the United States: a toddler in California and an infant who is not a U.S. resident, health officials said Friday, July 22, 2022.
The Monkeypox and Pets Study is currently underway in the University of Washington’s Center for One Health Research, directed by Dr. Peter Rabinowitz.“We’re enrolling households where someone has been diagnosed with monkeypox,” Rabinowitz said. “Our team can go out and provide free testing of the animals and be able to tell with this study how big a problem this is.
“We don’t have any evidence at this point that a pet could infect a human , but it just means that we should be cautious and take reasonable precautions at this point.” UW Medicine said that pet owners can reduce the chances of infecting their pets by washing their hands often and by not sharing bowls and dishes with their animals. It also advised that kissing pets can put both the owner and the animal at risk.
According to UW Medicine, the Center for One Health Research previously tracked household transmission of COVID-19 between people and their pets, finding that about 40% of pets tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. “That suggested that the pets had been infected by exposure to their virus-carrying owners,” UW Medicine said.