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发帖数: 43926 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: beijingren5 (吃喝), 信区: Military
标 题: 西班牙发现大量水貂携带冠肺病毒，下令处决十万只貂
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Fri Jul 17 12:00:17 2020, 美东)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53439263
Almost 100,000 mink at a farm in north-eastern Spain are to be culled after
many of them tested positive for coronavirus, health authorities say.
The outbreak in Aragon province was discovered after a farm employee's wife
contracted the virus in May.
Her husband and six other farm workers have since tested positive for the
disease.
The mink, bred for their prized fur, were isolated and monitored closely
after the workers became infected.
But when tests on 13 July showed that 87% of the mink were infected, health
authorities ordered for all 92,700 of the semi-aquatic animals to be culled.
Authorities said financial compensation will be given to the company that
runs the farm, based in a village 200 km (125 miles) east of Madrid.
Along with Madrid and Catalonia, Aragon is one of the coronavirus hotspots
in Spain, where more than 250,000 infections and 28,000 deaths have been
recorded since the start of the pandemic.
Joaquin Olona, Aragon's minister of agriculture, told reporters on Thursday
that the decision to cull the mink was taken "to avoid the risk of human
transmission".
Mr Olona stressed that it was not clear if "transmission was possible from
animals to humans and vice versa".
But one possibility, he said, was that an infected farm worker unwittingly
transmitted the disease to the animals. Another unsubstantiated theory was
that the animals passed on the disease to workers, he said.
What do we know about animal-to-human transmission?
Studies have shown that the virus is contagious among certain animals,
including cats and dogs.
Less is understood about the possibility of animal-to-human transmission,
however, with researchers studying the risk.
There have been other cases of workers testing positive for coronavirus at
mink farms in Denmark and the Netherlands, both major producers of the
animal's fur.
Calls to shut down 'dirty fur trade' after mink cases
In the Netherlands, tens of thousands of mink have been slaughtered in
recent months after outbreaks were discovered at farms across the country.
The move came after the Dutch government said it had found two suspected
cases of farm workers being infected by the animals in May. |
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