Coronavirpuss! Could your cat be the purrfect antidote to COVID-19?
Having pets at home could increase people’s resistance to coronavirus, according to a Polish doctor working with COVID-19 patients in Spain.
Sabina Olex-Condo who works at the emergency department at a hospital in Madrid, Spain, where she deals with coronavirus patients on a daily basis has found that colleagues with cats remain healthy and continue to come in to work.
Dr Olex-Condo said that it is possible that people who have close daily contact with the cat-carrier could have antibodies to the feline virus.
Meanwhile, many of those without pets were going on sick leave.
She noticed a similar pattern among patients, whom she sometimes asks about their situation at home.
Most of the patients coming to the hospital do not have pets at home, she discovered.
Dr Olex-Condo found that colleagues with cats remain healthy and continue to come in to work, whilst those without cats phoned in sick.
While these are just observations not backed up by statistics-based medical research, Dr Olex-Condo told Głos Wielkopolski newspaper: “It is known that cats have their cat’s form of coronavirus, which does not infect people.
“It is therefore possible that people who have close daily contact with the cat-carrier could have antibodies to the feline virus.
“And these antibodies can also destroy the human virus.”
Most of Dr Olex-Condo’s patients do not have pets at home.
For now, relatively little is known about the coronavirus and Dr Olex-Condo is not aware of any research on how pets can make humans more immune to it.
“But the importance of contact with animals for human immunity has already been studied and this fact has been proved,” she added.
Dr Olex-Condo said that “people who have close daily contact with the cat-carrier could have antibodies to the feline virus and these antibodies can also destroy the human virus.”
Further research is needed, but the doctor says that she would be happy to share her observations with a virologist and hear his or her opinion about them.
