Eight big cats in a zoo in the United States have tested positive for coronavirus, just days after a pet dog in the United Kingdom tested positive for the virus. 

Two African lions, two snow leopards, an Amur tiger, a puma, and two jaguars are among the infected cats, according to The Hill, citing the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Although some of the animals had a cough and nasal discharge, the symptoms were mild. 

According to the local newspaper, none of the other 12,000 animals at the St. Louis Zoo have tested positive. The source of the infection among the cats is yet to be identified by the staff. 

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The zoo has been inoculating its animals with an animal-specific vaccine against the disease that has wreaked havoc on the global human population for more than a month, according to The Hill.

“As in humans, we would expect that full protection against this virus would not be developed until a few weeks after the second injection in a series,” said Dr. Sathya Chinnadurai, the zoo’s director of animal health, told Associated Press. 

Six big cats at the Smithsonian National Zoo tested positive for the coronavirus in September.  

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Only recently, officials confirmed that a dog tested positive for COVID-19 in a first-of-its-kind case documented in the United Kingdom. Officials believe the infected virus was passed down from the owner to the pet, which is now recovering at home.

According to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), cases like this are uncommon, and there is no strong evidence that dogs, cats, or other pets are transmitting the virus to humans. 

The risk of animals transmitting the coronavirus to humans is low, according to the CDC, but people have been documented spreading the virus to animals all over the world. 

Big cats in captivity, domestic cats, dogs, ferrets, fruit bats, mink, non-human primates, pangolins, pigs, raccoon dogs, rodents, and white-tailed deer are among the animals infected so far.