SARS-CoV-2, Mannerism, Marten, Mink, and Man

ABSTRACT

Among the many mustelids are wolverines, weasels (including ermines), otter, badgers, marten (including sables), ferrets, and mink. Since the early Middle Ages, the quest for furs of these animals has played a role in European national expansion into areas where fur-bearing mustelids were populous, including Russia’s expansion into Siberia and France and England’s expansion into North America. Recent experimental research has shown that many mammals can be infected with the virus, including cats, dogs, bank voles, deer mice, fruit bats, ferrets, hamsters, mink, skunks, pigs, rabbits, raccoon dogs, tree shrews, white-tailed deer, rhesus macaques, and cynomolgus macaques. In January 2021, a combined report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and the World Health Organization presented data from OIE and other sources from 36 countries with mink farming industries and documented widespread virus transmission, in both Europe and North America. Because of concerns that mink farm populations could serve as a reservoir for ongoing coronaviruses transmission and result in development of mutations that would undermine the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, large-scale culling of these animals has been pursued by Denmark, the Netherlands, and Spain. [...]it appears that in addition to all the human-to-human contact prevention measures needed to control and eliminate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, interventions that reduce contact of humans or domestic (or farmed) animals with bats or other susceptible wild animals will be needed to avert future spillover with pandemic potential.