Since monkeypox cases began to be reported in countries in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Australia, and after its rapid global spread, scientists around the world have been working to better understand the disease, transmission, and the infection.
Now the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidance on monkeypox to include dogs as animals that can contract the virus after France documented the first case of a pet dog suspected of having contracted the virus from its owners.
According to the medical journal The Lancet, a dog owned by a couple gay was infected with monkeypox in the first reported case of human-to-pet transmission.
The French couple, involved in a non-monogamous relationship, contracted the disease after sexual contact with other men. On June 10, both went to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, France, for anal ulcers, fever and headaches.
Twelve days later, the dog, a four-year-old Italian greyhound, developed the same ulcers after sleeping with his owners in the same bed. A PCR test was then performed to confirm the diagnosis, resulting positive.
Before the evidence of transmission of monkeypox from humans to dogs, it was unclear whether the virus could be transmitted to domestic animals, as the recorded cases only concerned wild animals such as rodents and primates.
The CDC recommends that people with monkeypox avoid close contact with animals and that pets who have not been exposed to the virus be cared for by friends or relatives in another home until the owner or owners fully recover.
In late May, the UK Health Security Agency warned monkeypox patients to avoid contact with their pets for 21 days.
The concern is that the virus could enter pets and essentially play ping-pong between them and humans. If care is not taken, an animal reservoir for the disease can be created which could cause it to spread back to humans, and we will be in a cycle of infection.
– Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick, for the BBC
On July 23, monkeypox was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO). Its main source of human-to-human transmission is through close contact with injuries or bodily fluids.