Anonymous ID: 641163 April 19, 2021, 6:08 a.m. No.13460792   ๐Ÿ—„๏ธ.is ๐Ÿ”—kun

>>13460722

https://www.livescience.com/endangered-ferrets-experimental-covid-19-vaccine.html

 

Endangered ferrets get experimental COVID-19 vaccine

By Stephanie Pappas - Live Science Contributor January 01, 2021

 

 

 

Here, black-footed ferrets are being bred in captivity in northern Colorado.

Here, black-footed ferrets are being bred in captivity in northern Colorado. (Image credit: Kathryn Scott Osler/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

While humans are still awaiting a jab with a coronavirus vaccine, endangered black-footed ferrets in Colorado have already gotten their shots.

 

One hundred and twenty of the ferrets (Mustela nigripes) โ€” once thought completely extinct โ€” have been vaccinated with an experimental veterinary COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Associated Press.

 

Ferrets are highly susceptible to dying from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Minks, a close cousin of ferrets, have already been found to contract coronavirus in fur farms and, alarmingly, in the wild. This is dangerous because any time the virus transmits between humans and animals, it has more opportunities to develop mutations.

 

Related: Fast-spreading UK coronavirus variant: All your questions answered

 

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"For highly contagious respiratory viruses, it's really important to be mindful of the animal reservoir," Corey Casper, a vaccinologist and chief executive of the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle, told Colorado Public Radio (CPR). "If the virus returns to the animal host and mutates, or changes, in such a way that it could be reintroduced to humans, then the humans would no longer have that immunity. That makes me very concerned."

 

Black-footed ferrets are native to grasslands on the northern Great Plains. They were once believed to be extinct, but a few individuals were rediscovered in Wyoming in 1981, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Thanks to a captive breeding and release program, an estimated 370 black-footed ferrets exist in the wild.

 

Due to these low numbers and ferrets' susceptibility to coronaviruses, conservationists feared the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic would threaten this fragile recovery. Scientists at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center near Fort Collins, Colorado, began injecting their captive breeding population with an experimental vaccine in late summer. The vaccine is different from the ones thus far approved in humans. It uses a purified segment of the vaccine โ€” the spike protein โ€” and an adjuvant chemical that promotes immune response rather than the mRNA platform used by the human coronavirus vaccines.

 

(More at link. Apparently they're still alive)

 

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/12/31/colorado-covid-vaccine-ferrets/

 

NEWSHEALTHNews

At risk of extinction, black-footed ferrets in Colorado get experimental COVID-19 vaccine

Animals have been vaccinated at National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center outside Fort Collins

The U.S government through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is breeding the black-footed ferret in captivity in northern Colorado. Restoring the ferrets, an endangered species, to the United States prairies is considered a key step in to reviving dying ecosystems.

Kathryn Scott, The Denver Post The U.S government through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is breeding the black-footed ferret in captivity in northern Colorado. Restoring the ferrets, an endangered species, to the United States prairies is considered a key step in to reviving dying ecosystems.

By KAISER HEALTH NEWS

December 31, 2020 at 6:00 a.m.

2

By JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News

 

In late summer, as researchers accelerated the first clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines for humans, a group of scientists in Colorado worked to inoculate a far more fragile species.

 

About 120 black-footed ferrets, among the most endangered mammals in North America, were injected with an experimental COVID vaccine aimed at protecting the small, weasel-like creatures rescued from the brink of extinction four decades ago.

 

The effort came months before U.S. Department of Agriculture officials began accepting applications from veterinary drugmakers for a commercial vaccine for minks, a close cousin of the ferrets. Farmed minks, raised for their valuable fur, have died by the tens of thousands in the U.S. and been culled by the millions in Europe after catching the COVID virus from infected humans.

 

Vaccinating such vulnerable species against the disease is important not only for the animalsโ€™ sake, experts say, but potentially for the protection of people.

(More at link)