Hong Kong will cull greater than 2,000 hamsters and ban the import of small animals after a pet store employee, a buyer and at the very least 11 hamsters examined constructive for the Delta variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Officials stated on Tuesday that it was not clear that the virus had been transmitted to people from imported hamsters. But they referred to as on residents to give up hamsters imported since Dec. 22 to be examined and euthanized to stop any additional unfold.
“They’re excreting the virus, and the virus can infect other animals, other hamsters and also human beings,” stated Thomas Sit, assistant director of Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation division. “We don’t want to cull all the animals, but we have to protect public health and animal health. We have no choice — we have to make a firm decision.”
The cluster was traced to a employee on the Little Boss pet store within the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong island who was confirmed on Monday to have contracted the Delta variant. Further assessments uncovered one other an infection in a buyer who had a quick transaction with the employee whereas exchanging a cage and shopping for hamster meals together with her daughter on Jan. 7. A preliminary check indicated that the shopper’s husband had additionally contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Further testing discovered 11 contaminated hamsters within the store and constructive samples from cages on the firm’s warehouse. Health officers stated they’d discovered no precedent for pet hamsters passing the COVID-19 coronavirus to people, however famous that hamsters had been contaminated in laboratories.
Officials stated that two shipments of hamsters from the Netherlands had been notably worrying, together with about 1,800 introduced in on Dec. 22 and greater than 800 that arrived on Jan. 7.
All hamsters on the metropolis’s 34 licensed outlets will probably be seized for testing after which culled, officers stated. Anyone who purchased a hamster after Dec. 22 is requested to give up the animal to be examined and euthanized.
Pet outlets that promote hamsters can even be closed for cleansing, and the authorities will check the outlets’ rabbits, chinchillas and guinea pigs. Shops might reopen as soon as these animals are proven to not be contaminated.
Hong Kong, which has a painful historical past of infectious illness, together with almost 300 deaths from SARS in 2003, has taken aggressive measures to chop the danger of animal transmissions previously. In 1997, it slaughtered a couple of million chickens — each hen within the territory — to cease the unfold of an avian flu virus, and the town has since carried out smaller culls when contaminated birds are discovered.