Cats and dogs may also need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to stop the spread of the infectious disease – amid a threat from the “ongoing evolution of the virus in animals,” scientists have warned.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia and the Earlham Institute, both in the UK, and the University of Minnesota warned of the “significant long-term public health risk” of such a transfer in an editorial for Virulence.
“It is not inconceivable that vaccination of some domesticated animal species … might be necessary to stop the spread of the infection,” the experts wrote in the peer-reviewed medical journal, the British Independent reported.
Although there are no known cases of a human contracting COVID-19 from a furry relative, Cock van Oosterhout, professor of evolutionary genetics at UEA in Norwich, said we should prepare “for every event.”
“It makes sense to develop vaccines for pets and pets just as a precautionary measure 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.”
Last year, Denmark was forced to cull millions of minks after hundreds of coronavirus cases in the country were linked to the farmed critters.
If this were to happen in cats and dogs, it would pose “a significant long-term risk to public health,” the editorial warned.
“Continuous virus evolution in reservoir animal hosts, followed by spillback events to sensitive human hosts, poses a significant long-term risk to public health,” the group wrote.
“SARS-CoV-2 can infect a wide variety of host species, including cats, dogs, minks and other wild and domesticated species, and therefore vaccination of domestic animals may be necessary to halt further virus evolution and spillback events.”
The scientists added, “As the SARS-CoV-2 / Covid-19 vaccination campaigns are rolled out worldwide, new virus variants are likely to continue to evolve that have the potential to spread through the human population.”
Meanwhile, the group also calls on governments to continue to enforce strict controls, such as mask mandates and social waiver ordinances, to reduce the evolution and spread of new COVID variants.