Around 20 white-tailed deer in New York City have been infected with Omicron, a variant of the Coronavirus that was first identified in South Africa in November last year.
According to details, researchers at the Pennsylvania State University obtained the blood and swab samples of 131 deer in Staten Island, one of five counties of New York, as part of an ongoing study. They found that 20 deer were infected with the Omicron variant.
Pennsylvania researchers also found COVID-19 antibodies in some deer, suggesting that the animals had been infected with Coronavirus infection in the past and are vulnerable to reinfection with the emergence of new variants of the disease.
Speaking in this regard, Suresh Kuchipudi, study’s lead investigator and microbiologist at the Pennsylvania State University, has said that the discovery of any virus in an animal always raises the possibility of human transmission.
At the moment, there is no evidence that suggests that a mutated virus from the white-tailed deer has infected human beings, noted Suresh, warning that the possibility of its transmission to humans cannot be ruled out as the original strain of the Coronavirus was transmitted to humans from animals.
This is the first time that the Omicron variant has been found in wild animals. The development comes at a time the US continues to struggle to contain the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus.
White-tailed deer is a medium-sized deer that is native to North America, Central America, and South America. New York has more than 30 million deer which is the largest known concentration of the animal in the US.
Similarly, New York also has the highest number of hunters of white-tailed deer, a fact that has concerned public health agencies across the world, fearing that the animal could become the host of a new variant of the Coronavirus.