Maureen Miller, an infectious disease epidemiologist and medical anthropologist at Columbia University, was not surprised to learn this week that an Italian greyhound in Paris had become the first dog known to catch monkeypox from a human.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with the World Health Organization have cautioned since the start of this outbreak that the disease could spread to pets. Many of the routine ways dogs show affection for owners — licking their faces, nuzzling their skin, leaping up into their bedding — are potential pathways for viral transmission.
The CDC offers clear guidance for isolating household animals from infected people, and potentially infected pets from one another. Dogs should be able to recover from the virus just like humans do.
