Preventing a COVID-19 Pandemic--in Wildlife.

• Position: VIRUSES

While most of the global effort to contain COVID-19 focuses on its continuing human cost, a team of researchers has been formed to focus on protecting the next potential wave of virus victims: wildlife.

Martin Nweeia--assistant professor in the School of Dentistry at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio--is leading an effort to learn more about how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may spread to certain nondomesticated animals.

The team is focusing on the narwhal, an Arctic whale with a nine-foot tusk and a high potential for infection. "If this coronavirus were to gain a foothold in wildlife, there could be potential cascading impacts for ecosystems worldwide, and the communities that rely on them," says Nweeia, who also is a lecturer at the Harvard University School of Dental Medicine.

Researchers already know that the virus can spread to animals--the most well-known cases are those of the lions and tigers infected at the Bronx Zoo, while more than 1,000,-000 mink have been slaughtered to prevent the spread of the disease.

In addition, collaborators with Nweeia's team have started studying the susceptibility of the Ugandan low-land gorilla--a species that Nweeia indicates...