The Netherlands will start checking for the coronavirus on all mink farms in the country after research from an ongoing probe found a person likely caught it from an infected animal.
Mink screening for antibodies will be mandatory in "the interest of employee health," the Netherlands government said in a statement late Tuesday. A farm worker was infected with a coronavirus strain that was genetically similar to the one circulated among mink, suggesting the source was the animals.
Mink farms under surveillance
The semi-aquatic, carnivorous mammals are reared on more than 130 Dutch farms for their soft pelts. The pandemic virus was probably initially introduced by a person infected. Authorities are monitoring the outbreak to gage its persistence, said Marion Koopmans, head of the department of viroscience at the University Medical Center Erasmus in Rotterdam.
"Does it burn out on the farms? I think that's the biggest question," Koopmans, who helped investigate the outbreak, told Bloomberg. "We would not want to have a persistent situation."
The outbreak started around April 19, when signs of respiratory disease were identified among mink on two farms in the province of Noord-Brabant near the Belgian border, near each other. According to a report on Monday, 2.4 percent of the mink had died on one farm and was 1.2 percent on the other by the end of the month.
Koopmans and colleagues found that the new coronavirus causes viral pneumonia in mink, which, despite being segregated in cages with sealed barriers, can spread it.
Feed, Bedding
The researchers argued that the virus could be indirectly transmitted through infected feed or bedding material, through infectious droplets produced by the sick animals, or through contaminated bedding dust.
According to the study, traces of the virus were detected in airborne, inhalable dust on the mink farms, creating a source of "transmission between the minks and occupational exposure risk for the farmworkers."
The researchers are also investigating the role of cats roaming farmyards in the potential transmission of the virus among mink farms. Antibodies to coronavirus have been detected on one farm in 3 out of 11 animals.
Keep cats out of mink farms, authorities said
According to DailyMail, the government asked contaminated mink farms to keep cats out of the premises as researchers suspect they may be another transmission vector. Antibodies against COVID-19 have been detected on one farm in three of the 11 cats. Dutch police sealed off two mink farms in the country's south last month after discovering that some of the animals were suffering from coronavirus.
Researchers are currently taking samples at both farms to see which of the animals are infected to map the course of the disease for further investigation. They also took samples of dust to see how far the virus spread beyond the farm's area. An inquiry was launched to decide whether the animals had been poisoned by their human keepers.
