Protection from zoonoses
Who and why creates the COVID-19 vaccine for cats
Giacomo Tonini, Forbes,10.01.2021
If everything goes as planned by these biotech companies, you will be able to vaccinate your cat against coronavirus by the end of this year. Who is currently developing and testing a COVID-19 vaccine for pets and how do they plan to make money on it?
An outbreak of COVID-19 on mink farms in Denmark in November forced farmers to destroy more than 17 million minks to prevent the spread of a mutated strain of the virus among humans. Six months earlier, the Bronx Zoo made headlines when a tiger tested positive for coronavirus. Since then, dozens of mild cases of infection of cats and dogs have been detected in various places from Texas to Hong Kong. And two small biotech companies – one in Italy and the other in the United States – have begun to jointly develop a vaccine for cats that can prevent people from re-infecting animals and dispel the fears of pet owners around the world.
The veterinary division of EvviVax of the Italian startup Takis Biotech and the American company Applied DNA Sciences are creating a vaccine that will be administered to animals in two doses. The vaccine is based on the same technology as the Takis coronavirus vaccine, which began to be developed for humans last year: it uses DNA fragments to produce proteins that trigger an immune response against the virus. Clinical trials on cats are scheduled to begin in New York by the end of January. It is expected that they will last six months, and if successful, the USDA will approve the use of the vaccine in the country in the summer.
Cats will be the first to receive the vaccine. Most of the 54 cats in the United States diagnosed with COVID-19 had mild symptoms of the disease – for example, sneezing and runny nose. In this way they differed from minks, among which there was a fairly high mortality rate. In addition to protecting against infection, the main purpose of the vaccine is to prevent cats from developing a mutated strain of the virus that could be re-transmitted to humans. So far, no cases of transmission of the virus from cats to humans have been recorded, but such a possibility is still not excluded.
"It's hard for me to believe on an instinctive level that a coronavirus-infected cat that sleeps at the foot of my bed does not pose any risk to people. I don't like the idea that there is a virus in a domestic cat that poses a deadly danger to humans. By protecting domestic cats, we are protecting people at the same time," explains James Hayward, CEO of Applied DNA Sciences. At the same time, he emphasizes that the owners of cats still have no good reason to be afraid of getting infected from their pets.
Scientists are still studying the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. Bats are considered the most likely source of the virus. Prevention of any new cases of transmission of infection from humans to other animal species and back (this phenomenon is known as zoonotic transmission) is the key to preventing the spread of new mutated strains like the one found in Danish minks.
"In the case of minks, the mutation led to the appearance of new variations of the virus, and we do not yet know whether the virus has become more contagious or dangerous. Obviously, the main question is whether these new variations pose a threat to the immune system even after vaccination," says Luigi Auricchio, CEO and scientific director of Takis Biotech and its subsidiary EvviVax. "The tests we are conducting with cats will help us understand how we could react quickly to the variations that appear in animals."
Applied DNA and EvviVax are in talks with larger manufacturers to release new doses of the vaccine ahead of its approval. If the USDA approves the vaccine, cat owners in America will be able to vaccinate their pets in veterinary clinics by the fall of this year. The vaccine is supposed to be administered using a complex method called electroporation (it involves the use of short electrical pulses, which makes it easier for the drug to penetrate cells). Therefore, it is likely that at first it will be available only in large clinics where the necessary equipment is available. It is too early to talk about the cost of the vaccine, but the companies believe that it will be comparable to the price of conventional vaccinations for pets. In addition to cats, the vaccine can be used for some other domestic and wild animals: from rabbits, dogs and ferrets to minks and large representatives of the feline family, such as lions and tigers living in zoos.
A similar vaccine for pets and minks is also being worked on in Russia – the Federal Center for Animal Health expects that the tests will be completed in January, and the approval of the Russian supervisory authorities will be received in February.
Before all Danish minks were forcibly killed, Denmark accounted for 40% of the world's mink fur production – a considerable share for an industry that the International Fur Federation estimates at $40 billion per year. Mink farms in the USA and Europe have also faced outbreaks of COVID-19. It is reported that in Utah, the virus was transmitted to wild minks. According to Applied DNA and EvviVax, an effective vaccine for cats will later be able to be used by manufacturers of mink fur, which will provide developers with a potential profitable customer base.
"This is the obvious next step," says Auricchio. "It might be wise to vaccinate other animals like monkeys and gorillas, which can get infected in the same way as humans."
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