Brain Research Institute, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Faculty of Biology and Chemistry, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 25;13(1):3274. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-30473-7.
The availability of effective vaccines and a high vaccination rate allowed the recent mitigation, or even withdrawal, of many protective measures for containing the SARS CoV-2 pandemic. At the same time, new and highly mutated variants of the virus are found to have significantly higher transmissibility and reduced vaccine efficacy, thus causing high infection rates during the third year of the pandemic. The combination of reduced measures and increased infectivity poses a particular risk for unvaccinated individuals, including animals susceptible to the virus. Among the latter, non-human primates (NHPs) are particularly vulnerable. They serve as important models in various fields of biomedical research and because of their cognitive capabilities, they receive particular attention in animal welfare regulations around the world. Yet, although they played an extraordinarily important role for developing and testing vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the protection of captive rhesus monkeys against Covid-19 has rarely been discussed. We here report upon twofold mRNA vaccination of a cohort of 19 elderly rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) against infection by SARS-CoV-2. All animals were closely monitored on possible side effects of vaccination, and were tested for neutralising antibodies against the virus. The data show that vaccination of rhesus monkeys is a safe and reliable measure to protect these animals against SARS-CoV-2.
有效的疫苗和高接种率使得最近能够缓解甚至取消许多控制 SARS-CoV-2 大流行的保护措施。与此同时，人们发现该病毒的新的、高度变异的变体具有更高的传染性和降低的疫苗效力，从而导致大流行的第三年感染率很高。措施减少和传染性增加的结合对未接种疫苗的个体，包括易感染该病毒的动物构成了特别的风险。在后一种情况下，非人类灵长类动物（NHPs）特别容易受到感染。它们是非人类灵长类动物在各种生物医学研究领域的重要模型，并且由于它们的认知能力，它们在全球动物福利法规中受到特别关注。然而，尽管它们在开发和测试针对 SARS-CoV-2 的疫苗方面发挥了非常重要的作用，但针对新冠病毒对圈养恒河猴的保护作用却很少被讨论。我们在这里报告了对一组 19 只老年恒河猴（Macaca mulatta）进行双重 mRNA 疫苗接种以预防 SARS-CoV-2 感染的情况。所有动物都密切监测接种疫苗的可能副作用，并测试针对该病毒的中和抗体。数据表明，对恒河猴进行疫苗接种是一种安全可靠的措施，可以保护这些动物免受 SARS-CoV-2 的侵害。
