Research

Deer are infected with the coronavirus. Why is it important?

While in our country they announce the cancellation of non-workingdays in several regions (although the situation with the spread of COVID-19 has not improved), on the other side of the world, the virus continues to mutate, and in a somewhat unusual way. Coronavirus is now being transmitted to deer, according to world media reports, citing a new study. And before you think that this does not concern you, we note that by allowing the coronavirus to pass through animal populations, we lose control of the situation. Epidemiologists believe that in this case, further mutations of the virus will remain uncontrolled. This can lead to a dangerous mutation of the coronavirus, which will then return to the human population. Of course, such cases are rare, but the covid appears to threaten an already suffering deer population. As the results of a new study showed,
hundreds of white-tailed deer infectedcoronavirus in Iowa is likely to catch the virus from humans and then spread it quickly among each other. The findings have alarming implications for the spread of COVID-19 around the world.

The study found that up to 80 percent of deer sampled between April 2020 and January 2021 in the state were infected with COVID-19.

Content

  • 1 How often do people transmit diseases to animals?
  • 2 What happens to the deer?
  • 3 Why is the appearance of COVID-19 in deer bad?
  • 4 Dangerous mutations

How often do people transmit diseases to animals?

Diseases that are transmitted from animals tohumans are called zoonotic. These include, in particular, COVID-19, which has already claimed the lives of five million people around the world, and, judging by the latest news, is not going to stop. Zoonotic infections of severity include encephalitis, Ebola, SARS and other respiratory diseases. All of these viruses show the pathogenic potential of the zoonotic pool.

This also happened in the case of the new coronavirus. To date, there have been reported cases of COVID-19 in cats, minks, ferrets and rhesus monkeys.

However, in the natural world, everyone is cleverly arranged - ifthis or that virus spreads well in the cells of the human body, then with frequent interspecies contacts, the likelihood that the virus will be transmitted to animals increases. Scientists call such cases reverse zoonosis (human diseases that are transmitted to other animal species).

Animals get sick with COVID-19 and with similar symptoms

In 2009 at the Lincoln Park Zoo in ChicagoA 9-year-old chimpanzee died of a respiratory illness caused by a human metapneumovirus. This member of the virus family is responsible for about 10% of all respiratory tract infections. The rest of the chimpanzees living with the deceased became infected, but only one fell ill. The virus was likely transmitted from human to chimpanzee, but how and when is unknown.

More on the topic: In Denmark, animals infected with the coronavirus have been destroyed. Why are they talked about again?

Also known for outbreaks of fatalRespiratory Disease in Wild Chimpanzees - The influenza virus can often be transmitted from humans to other animal species. Thus, in the Congo nature reserve, an outbreak of influenza led to the death of 6 bonobos (a species of chimpanzee). Although the influenza subtype responsible for the outbreak has not been identified, the researchers hypothesized that the source was one or more zoo visitors.

Human influenza viruses are often isolated from pigs.Since its introduction in 1968, the H3N2 subtype has infected pigs around the world many times and has often caused severe outbreaks, while the H1N1 influenza subtype infects pigs. It is noteworthy that influenza viruses remain in the animal population for a long period of time and can serve as reservoirs for recycling old strains of influenza virus back into the human population.

Covid jumps between species and this greatly worries scientists

Just like the increase in numberspopulations, travel, and the global food business increase the likelihood that viruses will pass from animals to humans, and the same factors provide a reverse spread. Often with dire consequences.

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What happens to the deer?

Despite the fact that the work has not yet passedpeer review (and therefore not published in a scientific journal), its authors - researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and wildlife in Iowa - found the results alarming. So much so that they issued a warning to deer hunters and people who come into contact with them frequently to take precautions to avoid further transmission of the infection.

During the work, samples of retroperitoneallymph nodes in a total of 283 deer, 151 of which lived in the wild and 132 were in captivity. It should be noted that the lymph nodes located behind the throat were exposed to the attention of the researchers. The collected samples were then tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material.

Deer get infected with covid and that's no good

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The results obtained showed that a little morethan a third (33.2%) of deer from September 2020 to January 2021 had SARS-CoV-2 in their bodies. In the period from November 23, 2020 to January 10, 2021, the number of infected individuals increased to 82.5%. In itself, the presence of COVID-19 in deer is not too surprising. First, there have been previous reports of cases of coronavirus infection in many mammals, and available evidence suggests that the virus likely circulated among bats before eventually entering the human body.

Researchers are concerned not so much with the transmission of COVID-19 from humans to wild animals, but number of sick deer in the population... The team found that many casesgrouped geographically. This led the researchers to the idea that the virus felt comfortable in the body of animals and began to be transmitted between them.

Why is COVID-19 in deer bad?

The spread of COVID-19 among deer does matter, given the impossibility of vaccinating wildlife populations and the implications for further mutation of SARS-CoV-2if the deer become the so-called "reservoir"for the virus. In the United States, the words of scientists were taken seriously. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that hunters use gloves and masks to handle deer carcasses - cooking venison at 165 degrees is believed to kill any virus (other than Chronic Wasting Disease).

However, if the virus becomes endemic amongpopulation, over time it can evolve and become more virulent (that is, infectious), and then again be transmitted to humans - only in an updated form. It is possible that such a "mutant" will be resistant to the invented vaccines.

“If deer can transmit the virus to humans, thisis changing the rules of the game, ”Tony Goldberg, a University of Wisconsin-Madison veterinarian who studies the evolution of infectious diseases as they pass from animals to humans, told The New York Times.

Climate change has led to increased contact between humans and wildlife

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Interestingly, the first positive resultstests for COVID-19 appeared in September 2020 - in two deer in different parts of the state. Between late November and early January, when the pandemic raged across people across Iowa, the virus was found in 80% of deer. Such a high infection rate, according to the researchers, is actually 50 times its prevalence among Iowa residents during the peak of the pandemic.

Further examination of the samples showed the presence ofsimilar patterns between the appearance of mutations and variants of the coronavirus in the deer population and those of its strains that infect people. In addition, the virus is successfully transmitted between animals. Comparing the location of each specimen also showed that infections occurred simultaneously across the state as the hunting season lengthened.

Coronavirus successfully jumps between species, and in a short time, becoming more and more dangerous

However, it is not entirely clear if the virus is transmitted from humans.to the deer. Rachel Ruden, an Iowa wildlife veterinarian and author of the study, said there are many opportunities for transmission with 445,000 deer roaming the state.

“The virus can spread when people feedreindeer in their backyard, through sewage, or perhaps when an animal licks off a stain of chewing tobacco left by an infected hunter, ”she said.

Dangerous mutations

Meanwhile, the scenario described by scientists (in which the virus returns to humans from deer) is not far-fetched - 38 million white-tailed deer in the United States could become long-term reservoir of coronavirus... Moreover, there is another factor that causes concern -A huge number of deer, not only in the United States, but in Canada, Finland and Norway, suffer from Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), better known as zombie deer disease.

And although the zombie deer disease is prion(prions are misfolded proteins) and is very different from the viruses we are used to, previous studies have shown that COVID-19 affects the brain of some patients in the same way as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases - prions are actively involved in the development of these diseases. And given that the world is still gripped not only by a pandemic, but also by rapid climate change, we clearly need to pay attention to such things.

This is what a deer sick with Chronic wasting disease looks like. The hunter mortally wounded the animal, but the deer continues to walk.

So, in October last year in a scientific journalBrain, Behavior, and Immunity released a study that described the symptoms of COVID-19 in a man with mad cow disease. Researchers note that the first manifestations of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease happened in tandem with symptomatic onset of coronavirus infection.

Based on the latest pathogenesis dataof prion diseases and immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, the authors suggested that the cascade of systemic inflammatory mediators in response to the virus accelerated the pathogenesis of the patient's prion disease.

This hypothesis introduces a potential relationship between immune responses to the novel coronavirus and acceleration of preclinical neurodegenerative disorders... The global prevalence of both COVID-19 and neurodegenerative disorders makes it particularly important to study this potential relationship.

Let me remind you that Chronic wasting disease so farnot transmitted to humans - to date, not a single case of CWD in humans has been reported. However, chimpanzees - our closest genetic cousins ​​(97% of our genome matches) - become infected with CWD after eating contaminated deer meat. So, while there is no reason to panic right now, this situation cannot but cause concern. Ultimately, more research is being done on both coronaviruses and prion diseases, and more and more putative links between diseases are being identified.

In the photo, animals with symptoms of CWD (Chronic Wasting Desease)

See Also: Zombie Deer Disease May Have Been Transmitted To Humans

And considering that the first deer infected with CWD wasdiscovered in Finland on the border with Karelia in 2018, Russia probably also has sick animals. Therefore - although I am not a doctor or a scientist - I recommend, nevertheless, to stay away from these animals. So you will definitely reduce the risk of infection of deer with covid, which means, interrupt the chain of viral mutations. Although in an amicable way, everything that happens with COVID-19 can be called evolution. Be healthy and take care of yourself.