An outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 with high mortality in mink (Neovison vison) on multiple Utah farms
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Abstract
The breadth of animal hosts that are susceptible to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and may serve as reservoirs for continued viral transmission are not known entirely. In August 2020, an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 occurred on five mink farms in Utah and was associated with high mink mortality (35–55% of adult mink) and rapid viral transmission between animals. The premise and clinical disease information, pathology, molecular characterization, and tissue distribution of virus within infected mink during the early phase of the outbreak are provided. Infection spread rapidly between independently housed animals and farms, and caused severe respiratory disease and death. Disease indicators were most notably sudden death, anorexia, and increased respiratory effort. Gross pathology examination revealed severe pulmonary congestion and edema. Microscopically there was pulmonary edema with moderate vasculitis, perivasculitis, and fibrinous interstitial pneumonia. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of tissues collected at necropsy demonstrated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in multiple organs including nasal turbinates, lung, tracheobronchial lymph node, epithelial surfaces, and others. Localization of viral RNA by in situ hybridization revealed a more localized infection, particularly of the upper respiratory tract. Whole genome sequencing from multiple mink was consistent with published SARS-CoV-2 genomes with few polymorphisms. The Utah mink SARS-CoV-2 strains fell into Clade GH, which is unique among mink and other animal strains sequenced to date. While sharing the N501T mutation which is common in mink, the Utah strains did not share other spike RBD mutations Y453F and F486L found in nearly all mink from the United States. Mink in the outbreak reported herein had high levels of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract associated with symptomatic respiratory disease and death.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.09.447754: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Euthanasia Agents: In most cases animals died acutely due to natural infection, and less commonly were euthanized by cervical dislocation when humane euthanasia was warranted according to Fur Commission USA standards.
IACUC: The mink were housed as distinct separate, private operations that fall outside of the IACUC approval required at universities.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecogn…SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.09.447754: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Euthanasia Agents: In most cases animals died acutely due to natural infection, and less commonly were euthanized by cervical dislocation when humane euthanasia was warranted according to Fur Commission USA standards.
IACUC: The mink were housed as distinct separate, private operations that fall outside of the IACUC approval required at universities.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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