1. Respiratory disease in rhesus macaques inoculated with SARS-CoV-2
- Author
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Kimberly Meade-White, Rebecca Rosenke, Patrick W. Hanley, Elizabeth R. Fischer, Brandi N. Williamson, Beniah Brumbaugh, Friederike Feldmann, Lizzette Pérez-Pérez, Greg Saturday, Emmie de Wit, Neeltje van Doremalen, Dana P. Scott, Victoria A. Avanzato, Atsushi Okumura, Jonathan E Schulz, Vincent J. Munster, and Julie Callison
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Male ,Time Factors ,Fever ,030106 microbiology ,Pneumonia, Viral ,medicine.disease_cause ,Macaque ,Bronchoalveolar Lavage ,Article ,03 medical and health sciences ,Betacoronavirus ,biology.animal ,Case fatality rate ,Medicine ,Animals ,Lung ,Pandemics ,Coronavirus ,Multidisciplinary ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,biology ,business.industry ,SARS-CoV-2 ,Respiratory disease ,Outbreak ,COVID-19 ,Viral Load ,biology.organism_classification ,medicine.disease ,Respiration Disorders ,Virology ,Macaca mulatta ,Body Fluids ,Radiography ,Rhesus macaque ,Disease Models, Animal ,030104 developmental biology ,Bronchoalveolar lavage ,Cough ,Female ,business ,Coronavirus Infections ,Viral load - Abstract
An outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by a novel coronavirus (named SARS-CoV-2) and has a case fatality rate of approximately 2%, started in Wuhan (China) in December 20191,2. Following an unprecedented global spread3, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Although data on COVID-19 in humans are emerging at a steady pace, some aspects of the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 can be studied in detail only in animal models, in which repeated sampling and tissue collection is possible. Here we show that SARS-CoV-2 causes a respiratory disease in rhesus macaques that lasts between 8 and 16 days. Pulmonary infiltrates, which are a hallmark of COVID-19 in humans, were visible in lung radiographs. We detected high viral loads in swabs from the nose and throat of all of the macaques, as well as in bronchoalveolar lavages; in one macaque, we observed prolonged rectal shedding. Together, the rhesus macaque recapitulates the moderate disease that has been observed in the majority of human cases of COVID-19. The establishment of the rhesus macaque as a model of COVID-19 will increase our understanding of the pathogenesis of this disease, and aid in the development and testing of medical countermeasures.
- Published
- 2020
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