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Health

Zoo Animals Are Getting Experimental Coronavirus Vaccines

Zoo Animals Are Getting Experimental Coronavirus Vaccines

The Oakland Zoo in California started this week with bears, mountain lions, tigers and ferrets, the first of about 100 animals to receive an experimental vaccine against the coronavirus this summer.

Zoetis, a veterinary drug company, is donating 11,000 doses of the vaccine to approximately 70 zoos, sanctuaries, universities, and other wildlife sanctuaries in 27 states, and Oakland Zoo is one of the first to benefit. The vaccine is only intended for animals, is going through a different approval process than for humans and cannot be used to protect humans.

“It means a lot more safety for our beautiful animals,” said Dr. Alex Herman, vice president of veterinary services at Oakland Zoo. “Our very first animals to be vaccinated in the zoo were two of our beautiful and older tigers.”

There were no cases of animals infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid in humans, at the Oakland Zoo. But the zoo has taken extraordinary precautions, said Dr. Herman, by asking the zookeepers to keep a safe distance from the animals and to wear protective equipment.

However, big cats and other endangered animals such as gorillas have been infected in zoos in the United States and elsewhere. The San Diego Zoo vaccinated monkeys in February with the Zoetis vaccine, which was first tested on minks.

The New Jersey-based company made the same experimental vaccine available to Oregon mink farmers after the state ruled this spring that all mink it farms must be vaccinated. The US Department of Agriculture approved the vaccine for experimental use “on a case-by-case basis,” said Christina Lood, senior communications director at Zoetis.

The vaccine donation is the latest development in the patchwork response to animals infected with the virus.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, pet owners, zookeepers, fur keepers and scientists all have had their own specific concerns about animal infections. Pet owners have been concerned about the health of beloved cats and dogs, while epidemiologists and public health officials have warned that some species – domestic or wild – could become reservoirs where the virus can live and mutate, even if the world tries to fight it In people.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not considered vaccine candidates for cats or dogs, and veterinarians have consistently found that there is no evidence that pets can transmit the virus to humans. However, the virus was transmitted to humans from the cultured mink.

Updated

July 2, 2021, 5:06 p.m. ET

However, scientists continue to determine that both cats and dogs get the virus from their owners. Cats are more susceptible, and although most have mild symptoms, several studies have reported cats with severe symptoms. A cat in the UK had to be euthanized.

Dr. Dorothee Bienzle, a veterinarian and immunologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who recently completed a study of cats and dogs in households with people with Covid, found several cases of cats with severe symptoms. However, she said that all other diseases should have been ruled out in order to definitively assign the symptoms to the coronavirus; this was not possible in their study, which depended on blood samples and descriptions of symptoms from the owners.

Dr. Karen Terio, a veterinarian and pathologist at the University of Illinois Veterinary School at Urbana-Champaign, repeated that sentiment, saying, “I have heard of cats with severe clinical symptoms but have not seen any cases where they could confirm the signs were on SARS-CoV-2. “

At the latest online meeting of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Dr. Bienzle preliminary research that she and her colleagues had conducted.

They first tested cats and dogs in households where people tested positive for the coronavirus. “We focused on a likely positive population group,” said Dr. Bienzle.

They found that, as expected, more cats than dogs tested positive, 67 percent versus 43 percent. In cats, too, the time they spent with their owners, especially sleeping in the same bed, increased the risk of infection. This was not the case with dogs.

The researchers then tested cats that were taken to animal shelters and cats that were taken to inexpensive clinics for neutering. These cats, not known to have lived with infected humans, had a remarkably lower rate of infection, 9 percent in cats in shelters and only 3 percent in cats brought to clinics.

Dr. Bienzle said the advice to pet owners has remained consistent throughout the pandemic. If you have Covid, isolate yourself from your pets as you would from a human. Neither the United States nor Canada endorses vaccination of pets. Dr. Bienzle said that human transmission to the animals could be prevented through social distancing and masks.

Researchers in protected areas and those who work with endangered species like bats have taken stricter measures to keep the animals safe from infection.

For zoos, the question is not whether to vaccinate, but how to approach the patient if it is a tiger. “With a lot of positive reinforcement,” said Dr. Herman. The zoo trains its animals by giving them rewards so that they can voluntarily be stung. It’s pretty much the same idea as getting a lollipop after a shot, though animals are more willing to volunteer than humans.

“The tiger is leaning against the fence,” said Dr. Herman. “The thousand-pound grizzly bear is leaning against the fence.”

Good tiger. Good bear.

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World News

Sri Lanka’s Zoo Animals Are Having a Pandemic Child Growth

Sri Lanka's Zoo Animals Are Having a Pandemic Baby Boom

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – To prevent the worst of the devastation from Covid, Sri Lanka imposed lockdowns and suspended flights from overseas for almost a year, weakening the economy and drying up a vital tourism industry.

However, it was a fun time for animals in the island nation’s zoos.

Given the absence of visitors, animal births at zoos rose 25 percent last year, according to Ishini Wickremesinghe, director general of the Sri Lankan Department of National Zoological Gardens. Particularly noticeable, she said, was that several animals were born that have no breeding history in local zoos.

“Animals actually have a less stressful and relaxed time without people,” she said.

Sri Lanka closed its zoos in March 2020 and briefly reopened them to visitors earlier this year before closing again as coronavirus infections rose. The animals bred for the first time include a black swan, a white peacock and a Nilgai, the largest antelope in Asia. Others who have produced offspring include an Arabian oryx, a black duck, a scimitar-horned oryx, and a zebra.

“We also have three new lion cubs,” said Ms. Wickremesinghe. “After years, the animals really got a good break.”

The boys are now about six months old. With no visitors nearby, adult lions can roam freely in their enclosures and group together with potential companions.

In Sri Lanka’s wildlife parks, officials have not been able to confirm whether the brood is increasing, but the animals are “definitely stress-free,” said Manoj Vidyaratne, the overseer of Yala National Park on the island’s southeast coast. “We usually see around 400 vehicles in the park every day,” he said, “but this time nobody is there.”

Creatures in captivity elsewhere have also taken advantage of the pandemic to reproduce. Last April, two giant pandas successfully mated at the Hong Kong Zoo, which was closed to visitors due to the coronavirus.

Sri Lanka, an early success story in containing the spread of the virus, has seen a surge recently, registering nearly 3,000 new infections daily, according to a New York Times database. The pandemic has exacerbated the economic hardship of a country that struggled to recover from the terrorist attacks as early as 2019.

Sri Lanka’s zoos, which are home to around 4,000 species of animals, are among the main attractions of the tourism-dependent country, drawing more than three million visitors a year before the pandemic.

Despite the impact on revenue, Ms. Wickremesinghe said she hoped to keep the zoos closed until cases fell amid fears that primates could catch Covid-19 from an infected visitor. “We don’t know what to do when that happens,” she said.

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Health

San Diego Zoo Apes Get an Experimental Covid Vaccine

San Diego Zoo Apes Get an Experimental Covid Vaccine

The San Diego Zoo gave nine monkeys an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Zoetis, a large veterinary drug company.

In January, a group of gorillas in the zoo’s Safari Park tested positive for the virus. Everyone is recovering, but the Zoo asked Zoetis for help vaccinating other monkeys. The company provided an experimental vaccine that was originally developed for pets and is now being tested in mink.

Nadine Lamberski, conservation officer and animal health officer at San Diego Zoo Global, said the zoo vaccinated four orangutans and five bonobos with the experimental vaccine, which is not intended for use in humans. Among the orangutans vaccinated was a monkey named Karen, who made history when she became the first orangutan to undergo open heart surgery in 1994.

Dr. Lamberski said a gorilla in the zoo should also be vaccinated, but the gorillas in the wildlife park had a lower priority because they had already tested positive for infections and had recovered. She said she would vaccinate the gorillas in the wildlife park when the zoo received more doses of the vaccine.

Mahesh Kumar, senior vice president of global biologics at Zoetis, said the company is increasing production, largely due to the pursuit of a license for a mink vaccine, and will provide more doses to San Diego and other zoos if possible. “We have already received a number of inquiries,” he said.

Infection in monkeys is a major concern for zoos and conservationists. They are easily susceptible to human respiratory infections and the common cold virus has caused fatal outbreaks in chimpanzees in Africa. Genomic research has shown chimpanzees, gorillas and other monkeys are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the pandemic. Laboratory researchers use some monkeys, like macaques, to test drugs and vaccines and develop new therapies for the virus.

Updated

March 5, 2021, 8:37 a.m. ET

Scientists are concerned not only about the threat the virus poses to great apes and other animals, but also about the potential of the virus to enter a wildlife population that could become a permanent reservoir and emerge at a later date around the world Re-infecting people.

Infections with mink farms have caused the greatest horror so far. When Danish mink farms were destroyed by the virus, which can kill mink as well as humans, a mutated form of the virus emerged from the mink and re-infected people. This variant has shown resistance to some antibodies in laboratory studies, suggesting that vaccines may be less effective against them.

According to the World Health Organization, this virus variant has not been found in humans since November. However, other variants have emerged in people in several countries, proving that the virus can become more contagious and, in some cases, affect the effectiveness of some vaccines.

Denmark killed up to 17 million minks, wiping out its mink farming industry. Thousands of minks have died in the United States, and one wild mink tested positive for the virus.

Although many animals, including dogs, domestic cats, and big cats in zoos, have been infected with the virus through natural spread and others have been infected in laboratory experiments, scientists say widespread testing has found the virus in no animal in any animal other than the one mink .

National Geographic first reported on vaccinating the monkeys at the San Diego Zoo.