Even as India’s active COVID-19 caseload continues to drop, the ICMR-National Institute of Virology has warned of ‘reverse zoonosis’. According to the director of the ICMR-NIV, it is necessary for people to exercise caution while handling animals as negligence may transmit infections like COVID-19 from humans to animals.
Simply put, reverse zoonosis is when an infection is transmitted from a human to an animal. Over the past two years, as the COVID-19 pandemic made its presence felt in nearly every country in the world, there have been some reports of associated reverse zoonosis events. While this is a relatively rare occurrence, researchers suggest that there are specific risk factors including sufficient interaction between infected humans and recipient animals, the suitability of the animal host (for productive virus infection) and the suitability of the animal host population (for viral persistence).
“Whenever an infection transmits from humans to animals is called reverse zoonosis. It’s not only about SARS-CoV-2, but also includes other COVID like infections. Any infection that originally comes from animals to humans is called zoonosis,” ICMR-NIV Director Dr Priya Abraham told news agency ANI. She further termed the transmission of COVID-19 from animals to human beings a case of ‘suspected reverse zoonosis’ while stressing that it’s not a challenge to deal with such infections.
The problem lies in the lack of awareness about which animal species may be vulnerable to viral infections. “We don’t know which animal species are prone to pick up infections. You can’t get paranoid about it but we have to keep in mind that infection can transmit from us to animals and come back as well,” Dr Abraham added.
The ICMR-NIV official said that environment surveillance is an important indicator of the virus as suggested by other scientists too.
