The US government said on Friday it had confirmed the world's first cases of Covid-19 in deer, expanding the list of animals known to have tested positive for the disease.
The US Department of Agriculture reported infections of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in wild white-tailed deer in the state of Ohio, according to a statement. There were no reports of deer showing symptoms of infection, the USDA said.
"We do not know how the deer were exposed to SARS-CoV-2," USDA spokeswoman Lyndsay Cole wrote in an e-mail to Reuters. "It’s possible they were exposed through people, the environment, other deer, or another animal species."
The USDA has previously reported Covid-19 in animals including dogs, cats, tigers, lions, snow leopards, otters, gorillas and minks.
The number of coronavirus patients in US hospitals has breached 100,000, the highest level in eight months, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, as a resurgence of Covid-19 spurred by the highly contagious Delta variant strains the nation's health care system.
A total of 101,433 Covid patients were hospitalized, according to data published on Friday morning.
