VANCOUVER -- The B.C. Centre for Disease Control is looking for Lower Mainland cat owners who have recently contracted COVID-19 for a study on transmission of the disease between humans and their pets.

Dr. Erin Fraser is the BCCDC's public health veterinarian and the study's principal investigator. She told CTV News Vancouver researchers have screened 13 cats so far, but are aiming to get to a total of 40 for the purposes of the pilot study.

"We're looking for cats that are in households with a COVID-infected individual," Fraser said. "And we're really trying to capture them very early on after the individual has been diagnosed."

The research team is looking for active cases of COVID-19 in cats, in hopes of learning more about how and why the animals became infected, and what could have been done to prevent them from contracting the coronavirus.

Participating cat owners are asked to respond to two short surveys, each about 15 minutes long, over the phone. They're also asked to place their cat outside their front door in a carrier on two separate occasions, to allow researchers to take samples without coming into contact with the cat owners.

On each visit, researchers collect a blood sample, a nasal/oral swab and a rectal swab from the cat. The two visits happen within 10 days of each other.

"We are developing guidelines for managing risk both to pets, but - in particular - to people from animals, because there are a whole range of diseases that are transmissible from pets to people and, in this situation, from people to pets," Fraser said.

She noted that there is no evidence of cats transmitting the virus back to people, but said they can pass it on to other cats and "shed" the virus like humans do.

"We're also doing whole-genome sequencing of the viruses that we're detecting to see if there's any changes in the virus, or early signs of it, that may occur," Fraser said.

So far, three of the 13 cats that have been tested have had the virus.

"It's actually more than I thought we would see," she said.

Fraser said she'd be interested in doing a future study on a larger sample of cats with owners who contracted COVID-19 to try to determine the frequency of transmission from people to cats. She's also interested in looking at coronavirus cases in dogs in future research.

Part of the reason for doing a small pilot study is to help focus the group's research questions going forward, she said.

"All of this is new and we're learning as we go, so our questions at this point are very broad," Fraser said. "So, also, it'll help us say, 'OK, what do we need to look at in more detail next? What comes after this?'"

In addition to living in the Lower Mainland, those interested in participating in the study must be 18 or older, have at least one cat, and have tested positive for the coronavirus within the last seven days.

Fraser said the tight timeline has made recruiting cats for the study a bit challenging, but in some ways, that's a good problem to have.

"Given that our case numbers are going down, which is wonderful news, it'll probably extend through the summer until we can get our (cat) case numbers that we're looking for," she said.

More information on the study, including how to participate if you have a cat and have recently tested positive for COVID-19, can be found on the BCCDC website.