This file photo dated Sep 17, 2021 shows a leopard laying inside a cage in one of the facilities of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, in the city of Hargeisa, Somaliland.
(EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP)
A male leopard cub found dead in the wild in mid-October in India was infected with the novel coronavirus, marking the first reported case of the virus being detected in a wild feline species.
Researchers at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Izzatnagar, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh said the leopard cub was found dead near Bijnor, UP, around 150 km from New Delhi.
Genomic sequencing of samples taken from the carcass of the cub revealed that it was naturally infected with the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to a report prepared by the researchers that was posted on Jan 12 on bioRxiv, a preprint server for biological studies.
Researchers at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Izzatnagar, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh said the leopard cub was found dead near Bijnor, UP, around 150 km from New Delhi
The report warned about a possible spillover of the infection from humans to free-ranging animals.
Scientists had detected SARS-CoV-2 virus among captive lions and tigers as well as in wild mink and deer. In May last year, eight Asiatic Lions at the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad tested positive for the virus, a first in India.
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The discovery of SARS-CoV-2 in the leopard has triggered concern among the researchers who said their findings underline the need to intensify the screening of wild feline species to keep track of the virus’s evolution among wildlife.
“We found that this cub had COVID infection, but it did not die of COVID. We did find that the pathogenesis of the infection in leopards is similar to what is seen in humans,” one of the researchers, Gaurav Sharma said.
“However, we do not yet consider this to be an animal reservoir, since the infection is not widespread and animals do not seem to be transmitting among one another,” Sharma said.
It is important to find out how the cub was infected with the Delta variant at a time when COVID-19 cases in India were low, Sharma said.
The carcass of the leopard cub,which was around a year old, was recovered during a routine search of the agricultural fields of Mojipur village in the Social Forestry Division of Bijnor, UP.
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The Indian Agricultural Research Institute and IVRI examined the cub and found canine teeth marks piercing it’s neck, contusions under the skin and haemorrhages on the neck and head.
Researchers said the cub may have died after a fight with other animals some time after it began showing COVID-19 symptoms.
The genetic sequence of the spike protein of the virus from the leopard showed a“very high resemblance” with the sequences of the Delta variant.
The spike protein sequence was also similar to those generated in a previous study on infected Asiatic lions from Jaipur and Etawah in India, the scientists noted.
“The virus is finding new hosts in some wild animals. Many experts believe it may become endemic and can’t be wiped out completely as it finds new animal hosts,” Sharma said.
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The detection of SARS-CoV-2 in free-ranging leopards when COVID-19 cases among humans have dropped to significantly underlines the necessity to intensify the screening and check for development of carrier status in wild felids,” the scientists wrote in the study.
COVID cases in India had dropped to less than 10,000 per day when the leopard was found dead. But the Omicron variant has hiked daily infections in recent weeks.
India is now in the middle of a new wave of infections as it recorded 337,704 new cases and recorded 488 fatalities in the last 24 hours by Jan 22, according to federal health ministry latest data.
The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.