Germany - Pigs, chickens or cattle, do not pose a risk of transmitting the SARS-CoV-2 virus to humans., says Federal Research Institute for Animal Hea

[Gert van der Hoek]

08 Nov 2020Press release No. 225/2020

Current studies by the Friedrich Loeffler Institute: "Agricultural animals cannot be infected with SARS-CoV-2 and are therefore not at risk for people"

Also, there is no evidence that humans have been infected with SARS-COV-2 in dogs or cats

The Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture, Julia Kl?ckner, has commissioned the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI), which is part of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), to carry out studies on the susceptibility of animals to SARS-CoV-2 . The Federal Minister informs about the current results:


Farm animals

• The most important farm animals - such as pigs and chickens - cannot be infected .
• In individual animals - such as cattle - only minimal virus replication could be observed, which was also not passed on to contact animals.
• These animals therefore do not pose a risk of transmitting the SARS-CoV-2 virus to humans.

Pets

• SARS-CoV-2 infections have been detected in the field in cats, dogs and kept mink and also examined experimentally.
• So far there is no evidence that humans have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in dogs or cats.
• The FLI and the Robert Koch Institute give clear recommendations for action with regard to the sporadic infections in cats and dogs.
• These ensure that such infections can be appropriately tracked and analyzed if necessary.
• In June 2020, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture therefore introduced an obligation to report corona infections in pets in order to obtain information on occurrence, transmission and spread.
• The FLI continuously monitors developments in the animal sector and continuously conducts studies on further scientific questions about SARS-CoV-2 in animals.

Mink farms

• In Germany, the commercial keeping of mink no longer plays a role.
• The entry of SARS-CoV-2 in mink farms by infected people has now been described for mink farms, for example in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Spain and the USA.
• There it spreads in the sometimes very large populations (often more than 10,000 animals) and clinical diseases in mink.
• Variations of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in mink have been described (e.g. in Denmark and the Netherlands).
• There is evidence of zoonotic transmission from mink to humans.
• The FLI is closely monitoring further developments on behalf of the Federal Ministry.