New York City Rats Can Carry Covid Variants, New Study Finds
NDTV
Rats collected in the study tested positive for alpha, delta and omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
A new study has found that New York City rats can become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, The Guardian reported. New York City has about 8 million rats, and they have ample opportunities to interact with people, the researchers said.
The findings which were published on March 9 in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, noted that New York rats are susceptible to three Covid variants. Rats collected in the study tested positive for alpha, delta and omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. For the study, the group trapped rats in and around locations surrounding wastewater systems, mostly in Brooklyn. Biologists found that 13 of 79 rats (16.5%), tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
''To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to show SARS-CoV-2 variants can cause infections in the wild rat populations in a major US urban area,'' said Dr Henry Wan, the principal investigator of the study.
However, it's not entirely clear how the rats contracted SARS-CoV-2 or whether they pose a particular danger to human health.
