AMSTERDAM (BLOOMBERG) – The Netherlands will start checking all mink farms in the country for the coronavirus after research from an ongoing probe found a person probably caught it from an infected animal.

Screening of mink for antibodies will be mandatory in “the interest of the health of employees”, the Dutch government said in a statement late on Tuesday (May 19). A farm worker was infected with a strain that was genetically similar to one circulating among mink, suggesting the animals were the source.

The semi-aquatic, carnivorous mammals are raised for their soft pelts on more than 130 Dutch farms. The pandemic virus was probably introduced by an infected person originally. Authorities are monitoring the outbreak to gauge its persistence, said Marion Koopmans, head of the viroscience department at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam.

“Does it burn out on the farms? I think that’s the biggest question,” Koopmans, who helped investigate the outbreak, said in an interview. “We would not want to have a persistent situation.”

The outbreak began around April 19, when signs of respiratory disease were reported among mink on two farms located near each other in the province of Noord-Brabant, close to the Belgian border. By the end of the month, 2.4 per cent of the mink had died on one farm and 1.2 per cent on the other, according to a study released on Monday (May 18).

Koopmans and colleagues found that the new coronavirus causes viral pneumonia in mink, which can spread it among each other despite being separated in cages with non-permeable barriers.

The researchers posited that the virus might be transmitted indirectly through contaminated feed or bedding material, by infectious droplets generated by the sick animals, or by contaminated dust from the bedding.

Traces of the virus were detected in airborne, inhalable dust on the mink farms, creating a source of “transmission between the minks and occupational risk of exposure for the workers on the farms,” according to the study.

The researchers are also investigating the role of cats that roam farmyards in potential virus transmission between mink farms. Antibodies against the coronavirus were found in 3 out of 11 cats on one farm.

“It is advised that infected mink farms ensure that cats cannot enter or leave the premises,” the government said in its statement.

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