Whether you’re a cat or a dog person, you love nothing more than snuggling up to your furry companion on the sofa after a long day.
But for some people, it’s not that simple unfortunately. They have allergies. But it turns out allergies to cats and dogs are quite widespread in humans and they range from a sneeze or two, to needing urgent medical attention.
People who know they’re allergic to cats either outright avoid them, or top up on antihistamines. For many years, there has been an ongoing discussion on breeding or even genetically engineering cats into a hypoallergenic version of themselves. But luckily for animal activists, and other people who think such a thing is unethical, they’ve created a vaccine for cat allergens.
Cat allergies are surprisingly common, you probably know someone who has one.
The vaccine is not for humans but for the cats. It targets proteins Fel d 1, which is the major of the five allergenic substances cats produce. The substance is produced in the cat’s saliva and sebaceous glands. We know where it’s found, but we’re not sure what its function is. Around 10 percent of the Western population is allergic to this protein. HypoPet have successfully tested the vaccine in 54 different cats over the course of four different studies. They reported that the vaccine was effective in reducing Fel d 1 in the treated cats. More importantly, the vaccines had no harmful effects on the cats.
“Both human subjects and animals could profit from this treatment because allergic cat owners would reduce their risk of developing chronic diseases, such as asthma, and become more tolerant of their cats, which therefore could stay in the households and not need to be relinquished to animal shelters,” the researcher said.
Researchers combined a cucumber mosaic virus and the Fel d 1 molecule, which produces an immune response from the cats. After the vaccine, the cats’ immune systems attacked the molecules, and the tested cats were less allergenic to humans compared to regular cats.
“We are very pleased to publish this data which shows our HypoCat vaccine is able to produce high levels of antibodies in cats, and that these antibodies can bind and neutralize the Fel d 1 allergen produced by the animals,” the CEO of HypoPet AG said.
Many cats are abandoned every year, some due to human allergies. An upsetting amount of these cats will end up in shelters, where they are often euthanized. This vaccine will hopefully drop these numbers, as there will be less abandonment’s and more adoptions because of its success.
