Already public enemy No. 1 of citizens, the millions of rats that roam the streets of New York City may now pose another threat.

According to a study published in the journal mBio, rodents could in fact be a vehicle of Covid and also develop new variants.

The team behind the study looked at 79 rats in the fall of 2021, mostly found in Brooklyn parks. Thirteen of them (16.5%) tested positive. Expanding the positivity rate to the rodent population of all of New York City (about 8 million), the researchers speculated that about 1.3 million rodents could be infected.

The passage of the virus from pets to humans has never been verified in the past, but the researchers have discovered that mice are very sensitive to SarsCov2 and all its variants: «This is one of the first studies to show that the variants of the virus can infect a rodent population in a major urban area in the United States," said lead researcher Dr. Henry Wan of the University of Missouri.

What worries scientists is that rodents can not only infect people but that they can become a vehicle for the development of new variants. "It is very probable - underline the scholars - that mice play an important role in the evolution of the Alpha, Delta, Omicron variants, which could lead to the emergence of new variants".

However, Professor Wan warned, further studies are needed to understand the threat rodents pose to the development of new mutations and to humans.

(Unioneonline/L)

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