Hamsters may have been responsible for an outbreak of the coronavirus recently, a new study has found.
The study, submitted to The Lancet last month, found evidence that hamsters can transmit the coronavirus to humans, following a recent outbreak in Hong Kong.
Some 50 people were diagnosed with the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in January of this year, despite the variant’s disappearance since October 2021.
Researchers traced the spread of the Delta variant infections to a 23-year-old employee at the “Little Boss” pet shop in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district.
While other animals sold by the shop did not show signs of infection, eight of the sixteen Syrian hamsters tested there had evidence of COVID infection, either testing positive on PCR tests or on serological antibody tests.
Seven of twelve hamsters tested at the pet shop’s warehouse also tested positive for COVID.
Sequencing of the genome of the virus samples found in the hamsters revealed the animals carried modified versions of the Delta variant which was never previously reported in Hong Kong.
Researchers surmised that the hamsters, which had been imported from the Netherlands, had been infected in November 2021, before being shipped to Hong Kong.