Coronavirus Infection Found in Iowa Deer, dogs in Malyasia and Haiti

A new study of hundreds of white-tailed deer infected with the coronavirus in Iowa has found that the animals probably are contracting the virus from humans, and then rapidly spreading it among one another, according to researchers.

Up to 80 percent of deer sampled from April 2020 through January 2021 in the state were infected, the study indicated.

Scientists said the findings pose worrisome implications for the spread of the coronavirus, although they were not able to identify how the deer might have contracted the virus from humans. There is no evidence that deer have passed the virus back to humans.

Researchers and outside experts characterized the study’s findings as a troubling development in the course of the pandemic. Widespread infection among North America’s most ubiquitous game species could make eradicating the pathogen even more difficult, especially if they became a reservoir for mutations that eventually spilled back over to humans.

The study has not been published in a peer-reviewed science journal yet, but its authors at Penn State University and wildlife officials in Iowa found the results so disturbing that they are alerting deer hunters and others who handle deer to take precautions to avoid transmission.

Earlier this year, a multistate survey of white-tailed deer by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service turned up antibodies for the virus among less than half the deer in four states, but that study confirmed exposure, not infection. (Antibodies could mean the deer fought off infection.)

This new analysis — conducted by examining the lymph nodes of samples from roadkill and from those felled by hunters — showed active infections, the researchers said. The veterinary microbiologists who led the Penn State study, Suresh Kuchipudi and Vivek Kapur, said they were not prepared to find such widespread infection. ...

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