While people are still waiting for a jab with a coronavirus vaccine, endangered black-footed ferrets in Colorado have already received their shots.
One hundred and twenty of the ferrets (Mustela nigrips) – which was once completely extinct – was vaccinated with an experimental veterinary COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Associated Press.
Ferrets are very susceptible to death from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Minks, a prey of ferrets, have been found to contract coronavirus in fur farms and, worryingly, in nature. This is dangerous because every time the virus is transmitted between humans and animals, it has more opportunities to develop mutations.
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“For highly contagious respiratory viruses, it is very important to pay attention to the animal reservoir,” said Corey Casper, a vaccineist and CEO of the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Seattle. Public Radio in Colorado (KPR). “If the virus returns to the animal gas and mutates, or changes, in such a way that it can be reintroduced into humans, then humans will no longer have that immunity. It worries me a lot.”
Black-footed ferrets are native to grasslands on the northern Great Plains. They were previously thought to be extinct, but a few individuals were discovered in Wyoming in 1981, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Thanks to a captive breeding and release program, there are about 370 black-footed ferrets in the wild.
Due to these low numbers and the susceptibility of ferrets to coronaviruses, conservationists feared that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic would threaten this fragile recovery. Scientists at the National Conservatory for Blackfoot near Fort Collins, Colorado, began injecting their captive breeding population with an experimental vaccine in late summer. The vaccine differs from those approved so far in humans. It uses a purified segment of the vaccine – the ear protein – and a tool that promotes the immune response rather than the mRNA platform used by human coronavirus vaccines.
The center has now completed the vaccinations and had 60 ferrets vaccinated, if according to the CPR something goes wrong with the vaccine.
So far, the vaccinated ferrets look healthy, and tests show SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood. However, it is not yet clear whether the vaccine really protects against the disease, as the efficacy trials have not yet been completed in the ferrets. Efficacy trials are the equivalent of Phase 3 trials in humans that recently enabled the vaccination of Pfizer and Moderna to receive emergency food authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“We can do such things experimentally in animals that we can’t do in humans,” Rocke told CPR.
Originally published on Live Science.