According to researchers, your cats and dogs may need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 using a different shot than the one you receive.
What’s happening?
Experts from the University of East Anglia (UEA), the Norwich-based research facility Earlham Institute and the University of Minnesota recently wrote in an editorial for Virulence that “virus development in animal hosts such as cats and mink is followed by transmission in susceptible ones human hosts pose a significant long-term public health risk, ”the press release said.
- “It is not inconceivable that vaccination of some domesticated animal species might be necessary to curb the spread of the infection,” said the researcher.
Cock van Oosterhout, professor of evolutionary genetics at the UEA, said pets may also need their own vaccines, according to HuffPost.
- “It makes sense to develop pet and pet vaccines to reduce this risk,” he said on HuffPost. “What we have to be as a human society, we really have to be prepared for all eventualities when it comes to COVID. I think the best way to do this is to consider developing vaccines for animals. Interestingly, the Russians have already started developing a vaccine for pets, about which very little information is available. “
context
Denmark had to kill millions of minks last year because coronavirus cases in the country were linked to the animals, according to the New York Post. The same situation could occur with pets, creating a public health crisis.
