Carnivores such as cats and minks are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2.Brazil is a global COVID-19 hot spot and several cases of human-to-cat transmission have been documented.We investigated the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by testing 547 domestic cats sampled between July-November 2020 from seven states in southern, southeastern, and northeastern Brazil.Moreover, we investigated whether immune responses elicited by enzootic coronaviruses affect SARS-CoV-2 infection in cats.
We found infection with significantly higher neutralizing antibody titers against the Gamma variant of concern, endemic in Brazil during 2020, than against an early SARS-CoV-2 B.1 isolate (p<0.0001), validating the use of Gamma for further testing.The overall SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in Brazilian cats during late 2020 validated by plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT90) was 7.
3% (95% CI, 5.3-9.8).There was no significant difference in SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in cats between Brazilian states, suggesting homogeneous infection levels ranging from 4.
6% (95% CI, 2.
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.2-8.4) to 11.4% (95% CI, 6.
7-17.4; p=0.4438).Seroprevalence of the prototypic cat coronavirus Feline coronavirus (FCoV) in a PRNT90 was high at 33.
3% (95% CI, 24.9-42.5) and seroprevalence of Bovine coronavirus (BCoV) was low at 1.7% (95% CI, 0.
2-5.9) in a PRNT90.Neutralizing antibody titers were significantly lower for FCoV than for SARS-CoV-2 (p=0.
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.0001), consistent with relatively more recent infection of cats with SARS-CoV-2.
Neither the magnitude of SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers (p=0.6390), nor SARS-CoV-2 infection status were affected by FCoV serostatus (p=0.8863).Our data suggest that pre-existing immunity against enzootic coronaviruses neither prevents, nor enhances SARS-CoV-2 infection in cats.
High SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence already during the first year of the pandemic substantiates frequent infection of domestic cats and raises concerns on potential SARS-CoV-2 mutations escaping human immunity upon spillback