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Denmark on Friday defended its decision to kill millions of minks even after the World Health Organization downplayed fears of a mutated coronavirus strain, the discovery of which precipitated the move.
“All the remaining mink will now be euthanized, including the uninfected and otherwise healthy mink,” Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod told a news conference.
“We would rather go too far than take too small a step to combat Covid-19,” he said, adding that the Scandinavian country did not overreact or make the decision lightly.
As of Thursday, 216 mink farms in the country were infected with coronavirus and all the remaining minks would be culled according to animal welfare guidelines in the coming weeks, Danish health officials said. Denmark has a total of around 300 mink farms, according to officials.
Earlier, the WHO said it was monitoring the mutation, which was a “concern” but it was too early to know if it posed any risk to humans or would undo the impact of a possible vaccine.
“This is a global pandemic and many millions of people have been infected, many millions of animals have been exposed,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, during a virtual press conference from Geneva. .
“At this time, the evidence that we have does not suggest that this variant is different in the way it behaves … it is still the same virus.”
On Thursday, Denmark announced new and strict lockdown measures in its northern counties, home to most mink farms, after authorities discovered the mutated strain in the region.
The government said it would euthanize all minks, up to 17 million, to prevent human contagion with the mutated coronavirus, which health authorities say could be more resistant to future vaccines.
Tyra Krause, a senior public health specialist at the Danish State Serum Institute, the authority that identified the mutated strain, said that although more research was needed, early laboratory results found that “this variant showed less sensitivity” to antibodies, which could make a potential vaccine “less effective.”
Krause also predicted “an increase in the coming weeks” in the number of patients infected with the mutated strain, which is currently 12 people, he said.
In a report released Wednesday, the institute said tests showed the new strain had mutations in its so-called spike protein, which invades and infects healthy cells. That poses a risk for future Covid-19 vaccines, which rely on inactivating the spike protein, he said.
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The WHO’s Ryan said that while mammalian species such as mink were “very good hosts,” health officials were still “very, very far” from any determination on the impact of the mutation on a vaccine.
The global public health body would also look at biosecurity in other mink-farming countries to “prevent overflow events,” Maria van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead for Covid-19, said on Friday, adding that the risk of other mink animals farm and livestock was generally low.
“The mutations are normal,” van Kerkhove said. “These kinds of changes in the virus is something we’ve been following from the beginning.”
In the United States, about 10,000 minks on nine fur farms in Utah died from Covid-19, state veterinarian Dean Taylor told NBC News last month.
The deaths forced affected farms to self-quarantine while the outbreaks were investigated.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Minyvonne burke contributed.
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