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Last year, coronavirus vaccines billions of people – and into the blurry backs of a ship’s worth of zoo animals. jaguars they get jabs. bonobos dosing. So do orangutans and otters, weasels and fruit bats, and of course lions and tigers and bears (oh, me!).

Largely lagging behind, however, are two creatures much closer to home: domestic cats and dogs.

Pet owners noticed.

A veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. “I get a lot of questions about this topic,” Elizabeth Lennon said. “Will there be a vaccine? When will it be found?”

Technically, a pet vaccine is viable. In fact, several research teams say they’ve already developed promising cat or dog vaccines; shots taken by zoo animals initially dogs.

But experts said vaccinating pets isn’t just a priority. Although dogs and cats can catch the virus, growing evidence shows that Fluffy and Fido play little or no role in spreading the virus, and they rarely get sick themselves.

A veterinarian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dr. “I think a vaccine for dogs and cats is highly unlikely,” said Will Sander. “The risk of disease spread and disease in pets is so low that it is not worth giving any vaccinations.”

A positive Pomeranian

In February 2020, a woman in Hong Kong was diagnosed with Covid-19. Two other people in her home and an unexpected member of her household soon tested positive for the virus: a old Pomeranian. 17 year old dog first pet known to have contracted the virus.

But it’s not the last. A German shepherd dog in Hong Kong soon tested positive, as did cats in Hong Kong. Belgium and new York. Cases were extremely mild – animals there was little or no symptoms – and experts concluded that the virus was transmitted to humans, not pets.

Dr. “To date, there have been no documented cases of dogs or cats transmitting the virus to humans,” Lennon said.

But the possibility of a pet pandemic has sparked interest in an animal vaccine. Zoetis, a New Jersey-based veterinary pharmaceutical company, started working on a drug as soon as they heard about the Hong Kong Pomeranian.

“We thought, ‘Wow, this might be serious, let’s start working on a product,'” said Mahesh Kumar, Zoetis’ senior vice president of vaccine development.

In the fall of 2020, Zoetis had four promising candidates for the vaccine, each of which “robust” antibody responses announced the company in cats and dogs. (Small studies have not been published.)

But as vaccine development progressed, it became increasingly clear that infection of pets was unlikely to pose a serious threat to animals or humans.

Inside A study of 76 pets 17.6 percent of cats and 1.7 percent of dogs living with people with the virus also tested positive. (Research has consistently shown that cats are more sensitive more infection than dogs, maybe for both biological and behavioral causes.) 82.4 percent of infected pets showed no symptoms.

When pets get sick, they tend to have mild symptoms that can include lethargy, coughing, sneezing, runny nose or diarrhea. Animals typically recover fully without treatment, although a handful of more serious cases do occasionally occur.

Also, there is no evidence that cats or dogs can spread the virus to humans, and there are few signs that they are easily transmitting the virus among themselves. For example, stray cats are very less likely have antibodies to the virus This suggests that animals mostly inherited the virus from us and not from each other, rather than cats living with humans.

A veterinarian at Ohio State University, Dr. “It seems like cats or dogs will never be a reservoir for this virus,” said Jeanette O’Quin. “We believe that if they didn’t have sick people around them, they wouldn’t have been able to continue spreading it from animal to animal – it wouldn’t have continued to exist in their populations.”

Together, these factors convinced experts that a vaccine is not necessary for pets. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates veterinary drugs in November 2020, not accepting any application for cat or dog vaccines “because the data do not indicate that such a vaccine would be of value.”

Keeping the mink pink

But as the pet threat waned, another problem was coming into focus: the mink. graceful, slender mammals bred in large numbers, very susceptible to virus. And not only were they dying from it, they were spreading it to each other. and back to the people.

Dr. “I think the situation in the mink definitely warrants a vaccine,” Lennon said.

The USDA thought so, too, and declared it open to applications for mink vaccines in the same November statement, in which the agency said it wasn’t considering cat or dog vaccines.

Zoetis returned, deciding to reevaluate one of their dog breeds for mink vaccines. (Several other teams are also developing mink vaccinesand Russia already confirmed one shot for all carnivores, including mink, and reportedly started given to animals.)

Work on the mink is ongoing, but when news broke out about Zoetis’ work, zoos called. Some of their animals – including gorillas, tigers and snow leopard – he had already caught the virus and they wanted to make the mink vaccine a whirlpool. Dr. “We received a lot of requests,” Kumar said.

Zoetis who decides, supplying vaccines to zoos has now committed to donate 26,000 doses to zoos and animal shelters in 14 countries, enough to vaccinate 13,000 animals.

The improvement means that many zoo-dwelling cats, such as lions and tigers, have been vaccinated, not having pet cousins. This is partly because these strains appear to be more susceptible to the virus; Some died after being infected, but it is often difficult to pinpoint the cause of death.

Dr. “Big cats seem to get sick more than house cats,” Lennon said.

Also, zoo animals are exposed to far more people than the average house cat, and many are endangered.

Dr. “I don’t want to reduce anyone’s pet,” Sander said. “I have a cat too. But I think most of these animals are in high conservation status. They’re genetically very valuable. That’s why they want to try and provide the best possible protection.”

cat vaccination account

While the evidence so far suggests that the virus is not a major threat to pets, scientists agree that there is still a lot to learn. It’s still unclear how often infected people pass the virus on to their pets, especially authorities. don’t recommend routine testing for companion animals and the virus may have as yet unidentified health effects in pets.

In a paper published earlier this month, the scientists concluded that the Alpha variant, first identified in the UK, can cause heart inflammation in dogs and cats. Experts said the evidence is circumstantial, but the virus is linked to the same problem in humans, and the link is worth exploring.

Dr. “We need to do more research in this area to understand whether this is a real association,” O’Quin said.

Individual pets may be at particularly high risk from the virus. Dr. Lennon and colleagues recently identified an immunocompromised dog It turned out that he was seriously ill with the virus. Unlike most infected dogs, this dog emits high levels of the virus for over a week.

Dr. “Of course it’s a case, but it really shows that Covid is not the same in all pets, just as it is not in all humans,” Lennon said.

It’s certainly possible that future research – or changes in the virus – will change the calculus on a pet vaccine. If the virus turns out to be more common, lethal or contagious in dogs or cats than currently known, that would make the situation more attractive for a vaccine, the scientists said. The USDA said it may reassess its position if “evidence of further transmission and clinical disease” of a particular species emerges.

Dr. Kumar said Zoetis is ready to resume her pet vaccinations if that time comes. He said that if the company’s mink vaccine is licensed, veterinarians can use it off-label in the event of an unexpected outbreak in cats or dogs.

It has also been developed by Applied DNA Sciences, a New York-based biotechnology company. a promising cat vaccine “Just just in case,” said the company’s CEO, James Hayward. (Like Zoetis, the company, working in partnership with the Italian company Evvivax, is now more focused on the mink vaccine.)

For now, there are steps pet owners can take to protect their animals. People who test positive for the virus should stay away from their pets if possible or wear a face mask when caring for them.

And of course, a vaccine for humans is now widely available in the United States. Dr. “The best way to prevent SARS-CoV-2 in our pets is to prevent disease in humans,” O’Quin said. “Then please get vaccinated.”