A four-year-old female Malayan tiger in a zoo in Bronx, New York has been tested positive for COVID-19, the zoo’s chief veterinarian said.
“The COVID-19 testing that was performed on our Malayan tiger Nadia was performed in a veterinary school laboratory and is not the same test as is used for people,” Dr. Paul Calle said in a Twitter statement Sunday night.
From Dr. Paul Calle, Bronx Zoo chief veterinarian; "The COVID-19 testing that was performed on our Malayan tiger Nadia was performed in a veterinary school laboratory and is not the same test as is used for people.
— Bronx Zoo (@BronxZoo) April 6, 2020
Nadia, along with her sister Azul, two Amur tigers and three African lions had all developed a dry cough.
The big cats are believed to have been infected by a zookeeper – but all are expected to make a full recovery.
None of the other cats at the zoo, which includes leopards, cheetahs, and pumas, have shown symptoms, the society said.
This case is being described as unusual because coronavirus transmissions from humans to animals have been rare and not well understood so far.
For most people, the virus causes symptoms like a cough or fever – but we still don’t know much about what symptoms it could cause in animals, or in fact, very much at all about the different ways animals could be affected by it.
Many people on social media, including city politicians, expressed frustration that an animal had testing access while many humans haven’t been so fortunate.
“A tiger at the Bronx Zoo has more access to testing than the people of the South Bronx, where the risk of dying from COVID-19 is twice as high as the rest of the City,” a New York City councilman said.
However, Bronx zoo veterinarian dismissed this frustration.
“You cannot send human samples to the veterinary laboratory, and you cannot send animal tests to the human laboratories, so there is no competition for testing between these very different situations,” he explained in his succeeding tweet.
You cannot send human samples to the veterinary laboratory, and you cannot send animal tests to the human laboratories, so there is no competition for testing between these very different situations."
— Bronx Zoo (@BronxZoo) April 6, 2020
Zoo officials said they hope Nadia’s diagnosis “will ensure any knowledge we gain about COVID-19 will contribute to the world’s continuing understanding of this novel coronavirus.”
The zoo has been closed since March 16 due to the spread of the virus.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which confirmed Nadia’s test result at its veterinary lab, said there are no known cases of the virus in U.S. pets or livestock.
Several domestic animals had previously tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, including a Pomeranian and a German shepherd in Hong Kong, a domestic cat in Belgium.
Watch the video of Nadia and sister Azul while they were still cubs three years ago in this video by Wildlife Conservation Society.
