Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Fur farming a ‘viral highway’ that could spark next pandemic, say scientists

Study in China finds viruses that could infect people are rampant in farms breeding mink, raccoon dogs and foxes for their fur.
  1. Smriti Mallapaty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

A man inspects furs from foxes and raccoons hanging in a store building at a fur farm in China.

Foxes and raccoons are farmed for their fur. Chinese farms produced 26.16 million such pelts in 2016. Credit: Sylvain Cordier/Hemis via Alamy

Infectious-diseases researchers are calling for stricter biosafety measures in farms that breed animals for fur, to stop dangerous pathogens from jumping from animals to people.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 633, 506 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02871-y

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 09 September 2024: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the study included raccoons. This has been corrected.

References

  1. Zhao, J. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07901-3 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kan, B. et al. J. Virol. 79, 11892–11900 (2005).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Freuling, C. M. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 26, 2982–2985 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Catanzaro, N. J. et al. Preprint at biorXiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.13.584892 (2024).

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links