Mink are not a species most people think about. When they do, they typically think of mink coats or fur farming protests. While the mink industry has been on the decline in most regions for many years, there is still a massive number of mink being farmed for fur internationally. Some of these farms are
COVID-19 and Overdue Dog/Cat Vaccines, Part 2: Rabies
In some ways, the approach to rabies vaccine is easy. In other ways, it’s complicated. To some degree, the medicine is easy, but other considerations (like regulatory requirements) cloud the picture.
The medicine:
Rabies vaccines are highly effective. A single initial dose provides at least 1 year of protection. The first dose is supposed
SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance in Pets Study
We are looking to recruit Canadian veterinary clinic staff who have had COVID-19 themselves for a study to learn more about the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from people to their own pets (dogs, cats, ferrets). This study is being performed by Drs. Scott Weese and Dorothee Bienzle from the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph.
Who
COVID-19 in Animals Review Part 4: Mustelids (Mink and Ferrets)
I’ve spent a lot more talking about mink in the past few months than I ever thought I would. In regard to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 in people), mink and ferrets (their close relatives) are a fascinating story, but I’ll try to be brief about it. Mink have become important because of the
COVID-19 in mink: The Netherlands
We’ll put this in the “interesting but not really surprising” file.
When you have people with COVID-19 and they have contact with animals, there’s some risk of infecting the animals. The risk varies by animal species, but this virus seems to have the ability to infect a few different species beyond our own.
New COVID-19 research updates
Let’s just call this an “odds and ends” post. I’ll outline some interesting highlights from some recent papers, including a couple just posted overnight.
More on predicted susceptible hosts (pre-print (i.e. not peer reviewed) on BioRxiv)
This study looked at genomic data from 410 vertebrates, including 252 mammals, and the researchers ranked the different animal
Another SARS-CoV-2 experimental study
Another experimental study of the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) in several animal species has provided information largely corroborating results of a similar study of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity released last week. Eventually it becomes unnecessary to duplicate studies like this, but at the start of something new like this, repeated study and
SARS-CoV-2 in ferrets, cats and dogs: A new experimental study
Hot on the heels of the experimental study of SARS-CoV-2 in ferrets that I discussed a couple days ago is another new study, available in pre-print, that looked at susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 in a slightly wider range of animals, including ferrets, cats, dogs, pigs and poultry (Shi et al. 2020). Bear in
COVID-19 and ferrets
Based on what we knew from the original SARS virus and the similarity with SARS-CoV-2 (the cause of COVID-19), we expected ferrets to be one of the species that could be susceptible to infection with the latter. When ferrets were infected with the SARS virus, they got sick (unlike cats that just shed the virus).
COVID-19 and potential animal hosts
Viruses need to attach to cells to infect them, and they do this by binding to specific receptors on the cell. If a virus can’t attach, it can’t infect. Some receptors are very specific to an individual animal species, while some are more general. These differences in receptor binding explain why some viruses only infect