Animals near hiking trails and public areas have been found with the COVID-19 virus in their systems, supporting human-to-animal transmission, according to a study published today.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, appears to be widespread among wildlife species, according to Virginia Tech researchers.
The scientists found no evidence of the virus being transmitted from animals to humans.
Investigators tested animals from 23 species for both active infections and antibodies.
They found signs of the virus in deer mice, opossums, raccoons, groundhogs, Eastern cottontail rabbits and Eastern red bats.
“The virus can jump from humans to wildlife when we are in contact with them, like a hitchhiker switching rides to a new, more suitable host,” said Carla Finkielstein, professor of biological sciences at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and one of the paper’s authors. “The goal of the virus is to spread in order to survive. The virus aims to infect more humans, but vaccinations protect many humans. So the virus turns to animals, adapting and mutating to thrive in the new hosts.”
SARS CoV-2 infections were previously identified in white-tailed deer and feral mink.
“This study was really motivated by seeing a large, important gap in our knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a broader wildlife community,” said Joseph Hoyt, assistant professor of biological sciences in Virginia Tech’s College of Science and author on the paper. “A lot of studies to date have focused on white-tailed deer while what is happening in much of our common backyard wildlife remains unknown.”
The research team collected 798 nasal and oral swabs from animals either trapped in the field and released or being treated by wildlife rehabilitation centers. The team also obtained 126 blood samples from six species.
Researchers said the means of transmission from humans to animals is unknown, but trash receptacles or discarded food are the likely culprits.
“I think the big take home message is the virus is pretty ubiquitous,” said Amanda Goldberg, a former postdoctoral associate in Hoyt’s lab, who is the study’s first author. “We found positives in a large suite of common backyard animals.”
Many of the species that tested positive in Virginia are found throughout North America.
More research is needed to learn how the virus is transmitted from humans to wildlife, how it might spread within a species and from one species to another.
“But what we’ve already learned,” Finkielstein said, “is that SARS CoV-2 is not only a human problem and that it takes a heck of a multidisciplinary team to address its impact on various species and ecosystems effectively.”
The team will continue its research supported by a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
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Crystal Graham
