While humans are still waiting for an injection of the coronavirus vaccine, the black-footed ferrets in Colorado have already received their vaccines.
One hundred and twenty ferrets (Mustela nigripes) – once considered completely extinct – were vaccinated with an experimental veterinary vaccine COVID-19, according to the Associated Press.
Ferrets are highly susceptible to death from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Minks, a cousin close to ferrets, has been found to contract coronavirus on fur farms and, frighteningly, In nature. This is dangerous because whenever the virus is transmitted between humans and animals, there are more opportunities to develop mutations.
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“For highly contagious respiratory viruses, it is very important to be aware of the animal reservoir,” said Corey Casper, a vaccinologist and chief executive of the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle. Colorado Public Radio (RCP). “If the virus returned to the host animal and mutated, or changed, so that it could be reintroduced into humans, humans would no longer have that immunity. That makes me very concerned.”
Black-footed ferrets are native to grasslands in the northern Great Plains. They were once considered extinct, but some individuals were rediscovered in Wyoming in 1981, according to the US Fishing and Wildlife Service. Thanks to a captive breeding and release program, it is estimated that 370 black-footed ferrets exist in the wild.
Due to these low numbers and ferrets’ susceptibility to coronaviruses, conservationists feared that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic would threaten this fragile recovery. Scientists from National Center for Conservation of Black-footed Ferrets near Fort Collins, Colorado, began to inject its captive breeding population with an experimental vaccine in late summer. The vaccine is different from those approved so far in humans. It uses a purified vaccine segment – the protein spike – and an adjuvant chemical that promotes the immune response instead of the mRNA platform used by human coronavirus vaccines.
The center has already completed inoculations, leaving 60 unvaccinated ferrets in case something goes wrong with the vaccine, according to the CPR.
So far, vaccinated ferrets look healthy and tests show antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in their blood. However, it is not yet clear whether the vaccine really protects against the disease, because these efficacy tests have not yet been completed on ferrets. Efficacy tests are equivalent to Phase 3 tests on humans that recently allowed Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to receive emergency use authorization (USA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“We can do this sort of thing experimentally on animals that we can’t do on humans,” Rocke told CPR.
Originally published on Live Science.