CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University researchers will soon begin testing about 1,600 wild animals for the presence of the virus responsible for COVID-19, according to college officials.
The college said on October 25 that researchers in OSU’s Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine are seeking to learn which species can harbor and transmit the SARS-CoV-2 virus to better predict animal-to-human disease outbreaks.
“There’s always the potential for the virus to establish itself within an animal species permanently, and if that happens, there’s potential for it to be passed around among wild animals and then later spill over into humans,” said Brian Dolan, an associate professor of immunology in OSU’s veterinary college and the lead investigator on the grant.
Researchers will also sequence the full viral genome of the virus whenever they find it determine if it’s related to recent human COVID variants or if it has evolved and spread independently through animals, OSU said. The college said that the research’s focus is more aimed at those animal species that may come into contact with humans, such as rodents and bats. There are already surveillance measures in place that can detect the virus’s spread among domestic or livestock animals, OSU officials said.
“It’s a good investment to start looking at these human-wild animal interfaces and monitoring these sorts of diseases,” Dolan said. “It may not result in diseases that enter the human population or spread among humans, but for the relatively small investment of monitoring, we’re much better prepared to deal with it.”
OSU said the two-year project is under a $1 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and will only test mammals as mammals are the most likely animals to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
