LIVESTOCK and Fisheries minister Professor Nkandu Luo says her Ministry will undertake investigations to ascertain whether or not there can be human to animal transmission of the Coronavirus.

In an interview, Prof Luo said there was need to swab animals found at households where people had tested positive to Coronavirus.

“Everybody is affected, including News Diggers! An infectious disease affects literally everyone because it doesn’t know race, status or colour. And for us as a ministry, I am sure you have been reading about the Coronaviruses that some of them are human to human transmission and some of them from animals to humans so we are on the lookout so that they don’t get into animals,” Prof Luo said.

She said deep investigations have to be carried out around possible transmission of the Coronavirus from humans to animals.

“So we need to do some studies. For example, in Hong Kong, they found a person who had Coronavirus and even the dog in that house was also Coronavirus positive but it was not sick. So there are scientists there are trying to understand why the dog would be positive but not sick. Is it the fact that the dog was living with a person who tested positive to the virus? So those are research questions that need to be done,” said Prof Luo. “So for us here, we need to start investigating…for example, if we go into a home where there is Coronavirus, we need to swab the animals…It is a new science era right now so all of us have a lot of questions and the only way to find out is to go down and research, we need to investigate.”