COVID-19: Science against fake news and misinformation

 

Some Facebook posts state that COVID-19 is not a new disease, false allegations regarding cattle or canine Coronavirus spread through Twitter and misleading statements on the safety of protein consumption confuse producers and consumers. Together with several health and economic challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic brought misinformation and confusion around the globe. Against the wave of speculations and fake news, scientific facts matter: the strains of Coronavirus affecting animals differ from the new virus strain currently affecting humans.

While there is a lot of ongoing research in order to determine whether livestock might experience any kind of minor infections or even carry the virus mutation responsible for COVID-19, to date, there is no such evidence. This is good news to both livestock producers and consumers – not only their animals remain safe, but meat, milk and eggs are safe for human consumption as well.

A lot of conceptual confusion arouse due to the nature of Coronaviridae, which is a large family of viruses with four genera. Looking at the poultry segment as an example, Coronavirus is an old acquaintance. For many years, avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis (IBV) has been challenging producers and veterinarians. However, the virus responsible for this disease is not the same that causes COVID-19.
 

“The Coronavirus family is divided in four groups: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. The one affecting poultry is a Gammacoronavirus, while a Betacoronavirus is responsible for COVID-19. It is important to highlight that the Gammacoronavirus affecting poultry cannot infect humans. In the same way, Covid-19, as a Betacoronavirus, cannot infect chickens,” explains Stephane Lemiere, Head of Avian Technical.

A broad variety of virus

In other words, the term Coronavirus refers to a broad group of viruses that circulate in nature. That variety became a fertile ground for rumors that brought an extra challenge: speculation, misinformation and fake news. False information circulated in different social media networks, in different languages, claiming that the novel Coronavirus was not a new disease. Photos of vials of Coronavirus vaccines for animals were also published as “evidence”.

These claims make no sense. It must be noted that the actual name of the virus that causes COVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2, whereas the Coronavirus for which a cattle vaccine is available is called BCV or BCoV; and the one affecting dogs is the CCV or CRCoV, which wouldn’t work across species either.

“The same logic applies to poultry. For instance, for years, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health has produced vaccines to protect poultry from Gammacoronavirus causing Infectious Bronchitis, and those vaccines will not work on humans affected by COVID-19. To our knowledge, there is currently no vaccine that protects people from the novel strain of Coronavirus that causes COVID-19,” says Stephane.

Milk, eggs and meat safe for consumption

The Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health team is fully committed to providing the best solutions and approaches but also to supporting the livestock community through reliable scientific information and the dissemination of best practices around the globe – as fighting disinformation in real time is no easy task.

  Another piece of fake news circulating on social media states that chickens could spread the new Coronavirus to humans either through direct contact or through consumption. This is another false claim without scientific support: the Gammacoronavirus that might affect chicken cannot infect humans. Furthermore, even if a human infected with the COVID-19 agent, the SARS-Cov-2, which is a Betacoronavirus, could disseminate particles in the air due to a cough or a sneeze, those would not succeed in infecting the chicken, as recent research¹ has demonstrated.
 

“To date² , there is no possibility of poultry being infected by SARS-CoV2 because the site of replication of avian Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV2 are different. Imagine a front door through which the virus spikes attach to the cells and enter them. In chickens, this site of replication is the sialic acid, which is present only in certain cells of poultry; while in humans it is the ACE2, a receptor that is a part of the cell and it is not present in chickens,” adds Andrea Delvecchio, Avian Global Technical Manager.

For these reasons, there is no additional danger for farmers to grow or process chickens as usual during the current pandemic when regular biosecurity practices are in place. Consequently, consuming animal protein also remains safe.
 

“During these challenging times, it is critical to continue to supply safe food to people all over the world. We fully support our customers in their mission of producing quality and affordable protein and continue to provide the products and services they need. This is a mission we take very seriously,” concludes Jerome Baudon, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health Global Head of Poultry.