That may seem like a strange question, but bear with me and read on.
Mink are back in the news, mainly with respect to vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. Mink are very susceptible to this virus, and it’s been shown that they can transmit it back to people. Perhaps more of a concern is that several mutant
There are various reasons we’re paying attention to SARS-CoV-2 in domestic animals. One important one is the potential for transmission of the virus from domestic animals to wildlife (because animals tend to have more direct contact with wildlife than people do). More specifically, we’re concerned about transmission to wildlife and then persistence of the virus
Not surprisingly, COVID-19 has been identified on a mink farm in British Columbia, Canada, in the midst of Canada’s 2nd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s important note that so far, the virus has only been found in people on the farm, not in the mink. Eight farm workers were reportedly diagnosed with COVID-19 over
Denmark is one of the largest mink producing countries in the world, and mink on numerous farms have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 from farm workers with COVID-19. At last report, 216 farms were affected. That wasn’t too surprising since outbreaks on mink farms have been seen in several countries, with particularly widespread infection on farms
I’ve spent a lot more talking about mink in the past few months than I ever thought I would. In regard to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 in people), mink and ferrets (their close relatives) are a fascinating story, but I’ll try to be brief about it. Mink have become important because of the
I’ve been slow posting in the past few days, so here are a few quick recaps from the animal/COVID-19 world.
Higher quality debunking of crappy dog-SARS-CoV-2 paper
Back in April, a paper (Xia 2020) was released that suggested dogs could be the source of SARS-CoV-2. Most of us considered it crap at the
Things have been relatively quiet on the animal/COVID front for the past week or so (and that’s good). We’ll likely continue to see sporadic cases in pets that get infected from their owners. Hopefully, all of those cases will stop with the pet and there will be no further transmission to other people or animals
The SARS-CoV-2 situation in the Dutch mink industry continues to evolve. Dutch authorities are now reporting outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 on 8 mink farms (with one more suspected), as part of their broader investigation of the industry. After identifying outbreaks on multiple mink farms, the infection was declared a reportable disease national surveillance was initiated, including
As described by ProMedMail, the Dutch Agriculture Minister has provided another update on the outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 that have affected at least 5 mink farms in the Netherlands to date (click here for the original Dutch version of the letter).
Another suspected mink-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been identified (with potentially infections
In the midst of outbreaks of COVID-19 on at least 5 mink farms in the Netherlands, a Reuters article reports that Dutch Agricultural Minister Carola Schouten issued a letter to parliament indicating that a farm worker was infected with SARS-CoV-2 from the mink. That’s a bit surprising to me, with the surprising aspect being
