Cats and dogs may also need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to stop the spread of the infectious disease – amid the threat of “continued evolution of the virus in animals”, scientists warned.
Researchers at the University of East Anglia and the Earlham Institute, both in the United Kingdom, and the University of Minnesota have warned in an editorial for Virulence about the ‘significant long-term risk to public health’.
“It is not inconceivable that vaccination of some species of animals would be necessary to limit the spread of the infection,” the experts wrote in the medical journal with peer review.
Although there are no known cases in which one has contracted COVID-19 from a hairy family member, Cock van Oosterhout, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the UEA in Norwich, said we need to prepare for ‘any possibility’.
“It makes sense to develop vaccines for pets, for pets, just as a precaution to reduce this risk,” he said. “As much as we as a human society need to be, we really need to be prepared for any event that concerns COVID.”
Last year, Denmark was forced to eradicate millions of mink after hundreds of cases of coronavirus in the country were linked to the cattle.
If it happened to cats and dogs, it would pose a significant long-term risk to public health, ‘the editorial warned.
“The continuation of virus evolution in reservoir animal hosts, followed by flooding events in susceptible human hosts, poses a significant long-term risk to public health,” the group of scientists wrote.
“SARS-CoV-2 can infect a wide range of host species, including cats, dogs, mink and other wild and domestic species, and therefore the vaccination of domestic animals may be necessary to stop further evolution of viruses and flooding events.”
The scientists added: “While the vaccination campaigns against SARS-CoV-2 / Covid-19 are being launched worldwide, new virus variants are likely to continue to develop that could infiltrate the human population.”
Meanwhile, the group also calls on governments to pursue strict controls, such as mask mandates and social distance orders, to reduce the evolution and spread of any new COVID variants.