The advantage of ferrets in non-clinical studies of anti-infective drugs is that pathogenic microorganisms (especially viral strains) can infect and spread without host adaptation, and the clinical symptoms of infected animals are very similar to those of humans. Although ferrets have played a very important role in the research and development of antiviral drugs, their application scope is still limited, which may be related to the lack of corresponding national standards for laboratory animal feeding and application of ferrets, and the lack of specific diagnostic and detection reagents. This paper summarized the characteristics of ferrets as infectious disease models, and summarized and analyzed the application direction of ferrets in anti-infective drug research, aiming to promote the further standardization and standardization of the use of ferrets.