$3.6M USDA Award Funds UMD Study by ENST's Dr. Travis Gallo and Dr. Jennifer Mullinax on Cross-Species Infectious Disease Links
From the rapid transcontinental spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the impact of snarled supply lines, the pandemic provided one object lesson after another about how interconnected we all are. Now University of Maryland researchers will investigate another potential COVID link—this one between humans and one of the most commonly seen animal visitors in our neighborhoods.
A new $3.6 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS will fund an investigation into how, where and when white-tailed deer interact with humans in and around Washington, D.C,. and assess their potential role in transmitting COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases like influenza, as well as the risk of the deer becoming a reservoir for such viruses.
The study is part of a larger effort by APHIS to build an early warning system to prevent or limit future zoonotic disease outbreaks, and it falls under the agency’s One Health initiatives, which focus on the vital relationships between the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment.
As the study gets underway this winter, Assistant Professor Travis Gallo and Associate Professor Jennifer Mullinax, both of the Department of Environmental Science and Technology, will place GPS tracking collars on at least 45 white-tailed deer and take nasal swabs and blood samples for lab analysis.
The collars will transmit information back to the researchers about deer movements over two years, and the blood samples will reveal the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 and other diseases in the deer population.
