By JASMYN BEMBOOM
Staff Writer
Orangutans and bonobos at the San Diego Zoo had received a coronavirus vaccine, Nat Geo has learned, after some zoo gorillas tested positive in January. An orangutan named Karen, the first in the world to have open heart surgery in 1994, has made medical history again; she’s among the first great apes to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
In February, Karen, three other orangutans and the five bonobos at the San Diego Zoo have received two doses each of an experimental vaccine for animals developed by veterinary pharmaceuticals. Globally, infections have also been confirmed in tigers. Lions. Mink, snow leopards, cougars, a ferret, dogs, and domestic cats. Fewer than 5,000 gorillas remain in the wild, and because they live in close family groups, researchers worry that if one caught the virus, the infection might spread quickly and imperil already precarious populations.
It is sad to see that different types of animals can get the virus and they might not know what is happening to them since they stay together. At least the people who work with animals are able to treat them before the virus can spread to the other animal that may come in contact with them.