A team led by Anne Rimoin, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of epidemiology, has just launched an epidemiologic study of animal health care and welfare workers who may be at risk from COVID-19.
“The goal of this study is to better understand the risk the pandemic poses to frontline workers at the human-animal interface, and to generate data on their potential exposures to SARS-CoV-2, a zoonotic virus,” said Rimoin, concurrently leading a similar study of health care workers and first responders in Los Angeles County. “Zoonotic viruses, of course, are those, like Ebola, that can be naturally transmitted from animals to humans.”
The Veterinary and Zoonotic Surveillance for COVID-19 and Other Coronaviruses study consists of a baseline questionnaire and monthly follow-up surveys assessing demographic information, potential clinical exposures to SARS-CoV-2, occupational risk factors for COVID-19, mental health, and attitudes and practices associated with pandemic preparedness among animal health care workers.
The team expects better understand the risk of zoonotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from animals to humans, with the goal of better protecting animal health care and welfare workers from the virus and preventing resurgences of COVID-19 in human populations as a result of exposure to infected animals.
“Along with COVID-19, we hope to eventually expand the study to understand exposure to other zoonotic coronaviruses in the animal health care and welfare worker population,” Rimoin said. “This is an element of what should be a very focused effort at pandemic prevention as part of the response to COVID-19; these threats are not going to disappear – if anything, the risks to human populations are only going to increase because of climate change and the expected loss of tropical wilderness in the coming decades.”
The team includes experts with the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association (SCVMA) and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Veterinary Public Health Program. Anyone who works with or around animals, including those who work in veterinary clinics/hospitals, animal shelters, animal husbandry operations, farms and ranches, or zoos or aquariums, is eligible to enroll in the study, and can visit the study’s enrollment page.
The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, founded in 1961, is dedicated to enhancing the public’s health by conducting innovative research, training future leaders and health professionals from diverse backgrounds, translating research into policy and practice, and serving our local communities and the communities of the nation and the world. The school has 690 students from 25 nations engaged in carrying out the vision of building healthy futures in greater Los Angeles, California, the nation and the world.
