Yet another mink farm has been hit by coronavirus, this time a farm in Boxmeer with 12,500 mother animals, all of whom have young.

The farm is the 27^th in the Netherlands where coronavirus has been found and was identified following routine checks on dead animals. All the mink at the farm will now be killed as soon as possible.

Last week, government experts said that all the country’s 120 plus mink farms should be cleared of animals if there are more infections later than mid-August.

More than a million mink have been killed since the virus was first found on a farm in Noord-Brabant in May.

Mink farming in the Netherlands is being phased out by 2024 but the government has rejected recent calls from MPs to speed up the process.

Stricter hygiene protocols have been introduced for the industry since it emerged that mink could contract the virus. In at least two instances mink are known to have transmitted the virus to humans.