together on a Covid-19 vaccine for cats that could prevent reinfection from animals back to humans and soothe the fears of pet owners worldwide.
The first animals to be inoculated with this vaccine will be cats. Most of the 54 cats in the U.S. diagnosed with Covid-19 have had mild symptoms ranging from sneezing to runny noses, compared to the highin infected minks. Beyond protecting cats from infection, the primary objective is to prevent them from developing a mutant strain that could reinfect humans. While there haven’t been any cases of cats infecting humans with the virus, the potential for transmission still exists.
“What happened with minks is that new variants of the virus emerged with mutations, and we don’t yet know if these mutations make the virus more contagious or stronger. Clearly the worry is that these new variants could be a threat to the immune system even after someone is vaccinated,” said Luigi Aurisicchio, CEO and chief scientific officer of Takis Biotech and its subsidiary EvviVax.