A second suspected case of a mink transmitting the coronavirus to a human has been detected in the Netherlands, the country’s agriculture ministry has said.
The infection is believed to have happened at a mink-breeding farm where there had been a virus outbreak among the animals, it said.
“All possible measures are under consideration,” agriculture minister Carola Schouten wrote in a letter to parliament.
The minister said there was a “negligible” risk of animal-to-human transmission of the virus outside the mink farms.
Last week, the ministry said a farm worker was infected with a coronavirus strain that was genetically similar to one circulating among mink. Since then, vets have expressed concern and fear many of the animals may need to be culled.
Mink, semi-aquatic, carnivorous mammals, are raised for their fur.
The first cases of the coronavirus were linked to a market where wild animals were sold in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Most disease experts agree the virus was transmitted to humans by an animal, possibly a bat.
READ ALSO: Spain sets to lift foreign arrival quarantine from 1 June
