Researchers are investigating whether animals infected with the coronavirus might become reservoirs for the evolution of new variants that might jump back into humans — an issue with huge implications for both human and animal health.
May 20, 2022 at 10:53 a.m. EDTSarah Hamer, an assistant professor and veterinary ecologist at Texas A&M University, swabs the cheeks of a Jack Russell terrier, whose family in College Station, Tex., had covid-19, to try to map the chain of transmission. Researchers Sarah Hamer and Lisa Auckland donned their masks and gowns as they pulled up to the suburban home in College Station, Tex. The family of three inside had had covid a few weeks earlier, and now it was time to check on the pets.
The search for infected animals in Texas — led by Texas A&M University in conjunction with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — is part of a scattered but growing global effort to monitor pets, livestock and wildlife for new, potentially more dangerous coronavirus variants and stop them from wreaking havoc on humans.that animal reservoirs could lead to “potential acceleration of virus evolution” and new variants.
In the span of more than two years, the coronavirus itself has been evolving faster than most anyone expected — creating an evolutionary “super-tree” with major new branches seeming to sprout every few months. The environment in which these variants are forming, researchers surmise, is likely one that allows the virus to live longer and thereby make more copies of itself, increasing the prospect of new mutations.
H5N1, a highly pathogenic flu that occurs in wild birds, sent fear through the medical community after a young boy died of it in Hong Kong in May 1997. SARS1, which caused an outbreak in Asia from 2002 to 2004, infecting more than 8,000 people, is believed to have jumped from civets, a catlike mammal, to humans.
Hong Kong had been quiet for months, and the delta wave that had devastated much of the world seemed to wash over the city with few cases. The city had implemented a strict — some it called draconian — “zero covid” policy that had kept the islands infection-free for long periods.
“We really have to highlight the concept of one health. It’s not only about human health. We have to consider health in animals and the environment. And if you don’t look after these areas, we are the one that suffer at the end.”The rabbits, chinchillas and guinea pigs were cleared. But 11 of the hamsters, specifically the golden Syrian hamsters, tested positive for coronavirus, with a variant similar to the one that had infected the woman.
“We really have to highlight the concept of one health,” Poon reflected. “It’s not only about human health. We have to consider health in animals and the environment. And if you don’t look after these areas, we are the one that suffer at the end.”It was early 2020, and Andrew Bowman, an associate professor of veterinary medicine at Ohio State University, was tracking the animals near Columbus for other purposes and thought he might as well add in one more test.
In Canada, Brad Pickering, an animal pathogens expert with the country’s Food Inspection Agency, went further to learn more about the evolution of the virus in deer. Examining samples of 300 animals hunted in Ontario from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, he was shocked to find 76 mutations in some deer strains.
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