We have a lot of different concerns about SARS-CoV-2 on mink farms. Mink are really susceptible and human-mink infection isn’t uncommon, so if we continue to farm mink, we will continue to expose mink as long as this virus is around.
Two of the biggest concerns relate to the potential for mink to make things
I’ve written before about animal vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 with regard to mink, but with Russia having recently licensed its Carnivac-Cov vaccine for use in several species (namely dogs, cats, foxes and mink) and Zoetis developing a vaccine in the US for mink, there’s continued interest in the subject, so I’ll revisit it.
I’m glad
I’ve had a blog writing dry spell lately (too much other stuff to catch up on), so I’ll jump back with a quick summary of some recent papers on SARS-CoV-2 in animals. There isn’t really anything surprising here, but it’s a continuation of what we’ve been learning and saying for a while.
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
