Family Dog Believed To Be Infected With Coronavirus. Testing Has Not Yet Been Confirmed By USDA.
***UPDATED***
A family dog in North Carolina is believed to be infected with Coronavirus. The news that Duke researchers uncovered positive test results in a family dog, a pug named Winston, was first reported by local affiliate WRAL Monday night.
Lyndsay Cole, a spokesperson for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service emailed the following statement to The Canine Review on Tuesday afternoon:
USDA is aware of this report and is following up. This reported detection of COVID 19 in a dog is not confirmed at this time. Any new findings of COVID-19 in an animal species must be confirmed by USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) and reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).”
Local affiliate WRAL first reported the story Monday evening:
The Canine Review will continue to update this story.
Two Weeks Later, ‘Covid Dog’ Test Results Still Unconfirmed By U.S. Officials | The Canine Review
May 11, 2020 @ 11:25 am
[…] Nowhere in Duthiers’ report does he mention that animal cases of the virus need to be confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL), which had not yet received samples at the time of his and NBC’s reports, as we first reported after reaching out to the U.S.D.A. […]