Scientists examine coronavirus outbreaks at mink farms in Spain and the Netherlands
Authorities have killed more than 1 million minks at breeding farms in Spain and the Netherlands as a precaution after outbreaks of the coronavirus were discovered there.
The outbreaks among the minks on farms in both countries likely started with infected workers, although officials aren’t certain. But it also is “plausible” that some workers later caught the virus back from the minks, the Dutch government and a researcher said, and scientists are exploring whether that was the case and how much of a threat such a spread might be.
More than 92,000 minks were ordered killed at the farm in the Aragon region of northeastern Spain, with nine out of 10 animals estimated to have contracted the virus.
After the Dutch outbreaks began in April, Wim van der Poel, a veterinarian professor who studies viruses at Wageningen University and Research, determined that the virus strain in the animals was similar to the one circulating among humans.
“We assumed it was possible that it would be transmitted back to people again,” the virus expert said, and that’s what appeared to have happened with at least two of the infected workers.
Richard Ostfeld, a researcher at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., said that if confirmed, these would be the first known instances of animal-to-human transmission.
“With the evidence for farmed mink-to-human transmission, we definitely need to be concerned with the potential for domesticated animals that are infected to pass on their infection to us,” Ostfeld said in an email to The Associated Press.
More than 1.1 million minks have been killed on 26 Dutch farms that recorded outbreaks, according to the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. The government announced Thursday that minks at a 27th farm also were infected and would be killed.
The Netherlands, which has some 160 mink farms, is the world’s fourth-biggest producer of the prized fur after Denmark, China and Poland, according to Wim Verhagen, director of the Dutch Federation of Fur Farmers. Spain has 38 active mink breeding operations, most of them in northwestern Galicia.
Both Spain and the Netherlands have tightened hygiene protocols at mink farms and banned transportation of the animals and visits to the buildings where they are kept.
China, which produces about a third of the mink fur market, and the United States have not reported any virus outbreaks in minks or in animals at other farms.
Read More Here:
Fox News
Posts
