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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/health/coronavirus-mink-michigan-spillover.html
The Michigan Mink Mystery: How Did an Interspecies Outbreak Unfold?
The puzzling coronavirus cases highlight ongoing surveillance challenges and blind spots.
By Emily Anthes
May 22, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
In late September of 2020, captive mink on a farm in Michigan suddenly fell ill. They stopped eating, struggled to breathe and bled from the nose, according to a report from the World Organization for Animal Health. Two thousand animals died.
Laboratory testing soon confirmed that the mink were infected with the coronavirus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispatched a team of outbreak investigators, who collaborated with other agencies to swab mink, farm workers and a menagerie of other animals, from rats to raccoons, to determine how the virus had spread.
“We tried to leave no stone unturned,” said Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, who directs the C.D.C.’s One Health Office.
Last month, the C.D.C. confirmed that four Michigan residents, including two farm employees, had been infected with the same unique coronavirus variant that was found in the mink. It was the first, and so far only, known instance of possible animal-to-human transmission in the United States.
But many questions remain: When, and in whom, did the variant first emerge? How did a taxidermist with no connection to the farm contract it? Could there be a link between the Michigan mink outbreak and a white-tailed deer variant that scientists recently discovered in neighboring Ontario?
“It really feels very much like a puzzle,” said Dr. Samira Mubareka, a virologist at Sunnybrook Research Institute and the University of Toronto.“It’s not just pieces that are missing — it’s contiguous, interlocking pieces that are missing.”...
The Michigan Mink Mystery: How Did an Interspecies Outbreak Unfold?
The puzzling coronavirus cases highlight ongoing surveillance challenges and blind spots.
By Emily Anthes
May 22, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
In late September of 2020, captive mink on a farm in Michigan suddenly fell ill. They stopped eating, struggled to breathe and bled from the nose, according to a report from the World Organization for Animal Health. Two thousand animals died.
Laboratory testing soon confirmed that the mink were infected with the coronavirus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispatched a team of outbreak investigators, who collaborated with other agencies to swab mink, farm workers and a menagerie of other animals, from rats to raccoons, to determine how the virus had spread.
“We tried to leave no stone unturned,” said Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, who directs the C.D.C.’s One Health Office.
Last month, the C.D.C. confirmed that four Michigan residents, including two farm employees, had been infected with the same unique coronavirus variant that was found in the mink. It was the first, and so far only, known instance of possible animal-to-human transmission in the United States.
But many questions remain: When, and in whom, did the variant first emerge? How did a taxidermist with no connection to the farm contract it? Could there be a link between the Michigan mink outbreak and a white-tailed deer variant that scientists recently discovered in neighboring Ontario?
“It really feels very much like a puzzle,” said Dr. Samira Mubareka, a virologist at Sunnybrook Research Institute and the University of Toronto.“It’s not just pieces that are missing — it’s contiguous, interlocking pieces that are missing.”...