Several countries have reported Covid-19 cases in mink farms for a month now. On November 8, the WHO said: “To date, six countries, namely Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Italy and the United States of America have reported SARS-CoV-2 in farmed minks to the World Organization for Animal Health”. Since then, cases have been reported in Greece, Italy and Spain.
As for Denmark, 15 million minks have been slaughtered after being contaminated by a mutated version of coronavirus that could jeopardize the effectiveness of antibodies and therefore of a vaccine.
Today – as of Sunday November 22 – and for the first time, France is also faced with coronavirus in a mink farm in Eure-et-Loire – the ministers of Agriculture, Health and Ecological Transition announced.
“The slaughter of the entire 1,000 animals on site and the elimination of products from these animals have been ordered”. Furthermore, in the 4 mink farms in France, one is safe, while “assessments are going on in the last two”. Results are expected by the end of the week.
Following this announcement, the government reminded the importance of health guidelines to avoid contaminations between animals and people working in these farms, in one way or the other.
