Dog Owned by Dallas Ebola Patient Won’t Be Put Down

The dog of the Dallas health care worker who contracted Ebola while treating patient Thomas Duncan will likely not be euthanized, according to the city’s mayor.

A dog belonging to a nurse battling Ebola in Spain was euthanized by officials there last week, to the horror of animal rights campaigners. But Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings says the dog belonging to an ill health care worker in the U.S. will be spared a similar fate, USA Today reports.

“The dog’s very important to the patient and we want it to be safe,” Rawlings said. The dog was in the patient’s home when she was taken to the hospital.

Hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition to keep the Spanish’s nurse’s dog alive, but it was put down out of concern that it could transmit the virus. There’s been no documented cases of Ebola spreading from dogs to humans, but the virus has spread from other animals like bats to humans.

[USA Today]