What is the aim of the writer in this pasage? Good luck for this challenge! An orangutan named Karen, the first in the world to have open-heart surgery in 1994, has made medical history again: She’s among the first great apes to get a COVID-19 vaccine. In February, Karen, three other orangutans, and five bonobos at the San Diego Zoo have received two doses each of an experimental vaccine for animals developed by a veterinary pharmaceutical company, says Nadine Lamberski, chief conservation and wildlife health officer at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “This isn’t the norm. In my career, I haven’t had access to an experimental vaccine this early in the process and haven’t had such an overwhelming desire to want to use one,” Lamberski says. Picture of Nadine Lamberski Nadine Lamberski, head of wildlife health at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, stands outside the gorilla habitat. After a whirlwind month caring for the world’s first non-human primates to test positive for the coronavirus, she decided to vaccinate the facility’s other great...Read More The milestone had been triggered by another: In January, a troop of eight gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park became the first great apes in the world to test positive for the novel coronavirus. The silverback, 49-year-old Winston, fell ill with heart disease and pneumonia, but following experimental antibody treatment, he is recovering, as are the others. Globally, infections have also been confirmed in tigers, lions, mink, snow leopards, cougars, a ferret, dogs, and domestic cats, but the fact that great apes are susceptible to the SARS-CoV-2 virus has scientists especially concerned. Fewer than 5,000 gorillas remain in the wild, and, because they live in close family groups, researchers worry that if one caught the virus, the infection might spread quickly and imperil already precarious populations. More than a year into the pandemic, there’s still little known about how the virus affects animals. In many cases, the veterinary community must rely on limited data sets, learning what it can from individual cases and sporadic outbreaks in a handful of species. After the first dog tested positive for the virus, in Hong Kong in February 2020, veterinary pharmaceutical company Zoetis began developing a COVID-19 vaccine for dogs and cats. By October it had confidence it was safe and effective in both species. Lamberski was already in touch with Zoetis, following the vaccine’s development, when the safari park’s gorilla troop tested positive in January. Though the vaccine had only been tested on cats and dogs, she decided it was worth the risk. Between the safari park and the zoo, she and her team care for 13 gorillas, eight bonobos, and five orangutans—all potentially vulnerable and all spending significant time in indoor living quarters where the spread of disease is more likely. In February, while distracted from the needle with treats, nine of the San Diego Zoo’s great apes became the first known non-human primates to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. The apes had no adverse reactions and are doing well, Lamberski says. Blood drawn from Karen the orangutan and one of the bonobos will soon show whether they developed antibodies, the presence of which would indicate that the vaccine may be working. Three leftover doses will soon go to bonobos and one of the zoo’s gorillas who didn’t get the virus. (The troop of eight lives separately, at the safari park.) Weighing risks No one knew whether the vaccine would work on apes, and there was no way to be certain that they wouldn’t have an adverse immune reaction. While there’s always some risk with any vaccine in any species, Lamberski says, “it’s not like we randomly grab a vaccine and give it to a novel species. A lot of thought and research goes into it—what’s the risk of doing it and what’s the risk of not doing it. Our motto is, above all, to do no harm.” It’s common to give a vaccine tested and developed for one species to another, say both Lamberski and Mahesh Kumar, senior vice president of global biologics at Zoetis. That’s because vaccines are made for a specific pathogen, not a specific species. “We commonly use vaccines designed with dogs and cats for lions and tigers,” Lamberski says, and apes at the zoo get human flu and measles vaccines. ..... (adapted from NGL)