COVID-19 Is Mutating In Deer. That Could Become a Problem for People

Health officials say that while the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic may be behind us, SARS-CoV-2 is still a threat, and COVID-19 may be a disease we have to learn to live with, just as we have with influenza and other contagious illnesses. Because most of the world is vaccinated, been infected, or both, we are far more protected against serious COVID-19 disease than we were in 2019 when the virus first appeared. But as long as the virus keeps spreading, there is a chance it will mutate to evade vaccines, treatments, and the population-wide immunity we have built up, and could cause another devastating round of disease and death. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] And that viral replication could happen not only in humans—but in animal populations as well. In a paper published in Nature Communications, researchers led by Andrew Bowman, associate professor of veterinary preventive medicine at Ohio State University, studied the COVID-19 virus in deer populations in Ohio. While previous studies have documented the virus in deer populations, Bowman and his team focused on more granular genetic changes in the viral genome in infected animals, and found that SARS-CoV-2 evolves—meaning that it develops changes in its genetic code—three times faster than it does in people. Understanding how the virus is mutating in deer populations is important for human health, says Bowman, because based on the timing of infections, and the genetic signature of th...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news