Cats and dogs may have to be vaccinated to stop the spread of Covid

Cats and dogs may need vaccine to stop spread of Covid
Scientists said the continued evolution of the virus in animals ‘poses a significant long-term risk to public health’ (Picture: Getty Images / iStockPhoto)

It may be necessary to vaccinate pets in the future to stop coronavirus from spreading back to humans, scientists have said.

It has already been proved the virus can affect a number of different domestic species including cats, dogs and mink.

But experts from the University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich-based research facility the Earlham Institute, and University of Minnesota wrote in the Virulence journal that continued evolution of the virus in animals followed by transmission to humans ‘poses a significant long-term risk to public health’.

‘It is not unthinkable that vaccination of some domesticated animal species might… be necessary to curb the spread of the infection,’ they said.

Cock van Oosterhout, professor of evolutionary genetics at UEA, said dogs and cats can contract Covid-19 but that there are no known cases in which there has been spillback to humans.

‘It makes sense to develop vaccines for pets, for domestic animals, just as a precaution to reduce this risk,’ he said.

‘What we need to be as a human society, we really need to be prepared for any eventuality when it comes to Covid-19.

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‘I think the best way to do this is indeed consider development of vaccines for animals as well.

MISSION VIEJO, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 23: Carly Morris waits with her dog Trouble before Trouble is vaccinated at a drive-through pet vaccine clinic at Mission Viejo Animal Services Center amid the COVID-19 pandemic on June 23, 2020 in Mission Viejo, California. The vaccine clinic is usually conducted by walk-in but was held as a drive-through for safety reasons as the spread of the coronavirus continues. Some dogs were vaccinated inside their owner's vehicles while other dogs and cats received their vaccines outside the car. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
It has already been proved the virus can affect a number of different domestic species including cats and dogs (Picture: Getty Images)
‘Interestingly the Russians have already started to develop a vaccine for pets, which there’s very little information about.’ Kevin Tyler, editor-in-chief of Virulence, said: ‘Cats are asymptomatic but they are infected by it and they can infect humans with it.

‘The risk is that, as long as there are these reservoirs, that it starts to pass as it did in the mink from animal to animal, and then starts to evolve animal-specific strains, but then they spill back into the human population and you end up essentially with a new virus which is related which causes the whole thing all over again.’

It comes after Denmark’s government culled millions of mink last year after it emerged hundreds of cases in the country were linked with variants in farmed mink. Professor Tyler said while mink were culled in Denmark, ‘if you were thinking about domestic animals, companion animals, then you might think about whether you could vaccinate to stop that from happening’.
MISSION VIEJO, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 23: A veterinary technician vaccinates a dog at a drive-through pet vaccine clinic at Mission Viejo Animal Services Center amid the COVID-19 pandemic on June 23, 2020 in Mission Viejo, California. The vaccine clinic is usually conducted by walk-in but was held as a drive-through for safety reasons as the spread of the coronavirus continues. Some dogs were vaccinated inside their owner's vehicles while other dogs and cats received their vaccines outside the car. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Russia has reportedly started developing a vaccine for pets (Picture: Getty Images)

‘It’s not an obvious risk yet,’ he added.

Professor van Oosterhout and Professor Tyler wrote the editorial along with director of the Earlham Institute Neil Hall and Hinh Ly of the University of Minnesota.

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‘Continued virus evolution in reservoir animal hosts, followed by spillback events into susceptible human hosts, poses a significant long-term risk to public health,’ the scientists said.

‘SARS-CoV-2 can infect a wide range of host species, including cats, dogs, mink and other wild and domesticated species and, hence, the vaccination of domesticated animals might be required to halt further virus evolution and spillback events.

‘Whilst the vaccination campaigns against SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 are being rolled out worldwide, new virus variants are likely to continue to evolve that have the potential to sweep through the human population.’

They said the more transmissible virus strains, like the UK variant, require more people to be vaccinated to keep coronavirus under control.

‘Vaccination against a viral pathogen with such high prevalence globally is without precedent and we, therefore, have found ourselves in uncharted waters,’ they wrote.

The scientists have called on governments across the world to consider the continued use of measures such as masks and social distancing as the only way to reduce the spread of new variants of Covid-19.

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