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Three Israelis who recently returned from Denmark are showing symptoms of coronavirus, Hebrew media reported Monday, amid a special effort by the Health Ministry to ensure that the apparent coronavirus mutation found in mink does not enter the country.
The Health Ministry said Monday that it was conducting special tests on some 180 Israelis who recently returned from Denmark.
Channel 12 reported that three of them are already showing symptoms of coronavirus and officials were conducting tests to see if they were possibly infected with the variant strain.
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Israeli officials said the chances of any of the travelers carrying the mutated strain were thought to be low, which has so far only been found in 12 people in Denmark.
“The probability that a patient will carry the mutation to Israel is low,” the ministry said. “At the same time, we are acting cautiously.”
In this December 6, 2012 file photo, minks look out from a cage at a fur farm in the village of Litusovo, northeast of Minsk, Belarus. (AP / Sergei Grits)
The ministry said it was contacting all relevant travelers, further noting that Denmark was now a “red” country and that anyone arriving from there must immediately go into isolation for 14 days.
“It’s really scary,” said a traveler who recently returned to Channel 12. “I didn’t think of that. I returned to Israel with my young children and they will test me.
Viruses such as the new coronavirus that emerged in China late last year are constantly mutating, and new variants are not necessarily worse than old ones. The mutations have even helped researchers trace the sources of the outbreaks in various countries.
So far, no studies have shown that the newer variants of SARS-Cov-2 are more contagious or dangerous than their predecessors.
An employee pulls dead minks out of a chamber after they were gassed as they have to kill their flock, consisting of 3,000 mother minks and her cubs at their farm near Naestved, Denmark, on November 6, 2020 (Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau). Scanpix / AFP)
Mink contamination is not new, and breeders in several countries, including the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United States, report cases. Some cases of mink-infected humans have also been reported.
However, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Wednesday there were concerns that the variant could affect the effectiveness of a possible vaccine.
He said the country would kill more than 15 million minks.
Denmark has been specific in describing how different strains of the virus jumped from mink to man.
“According to information from the Danish authorities, this virus is neither more pathogenic nor more virulent,” specialist Gilles Salvat from the French health agency Anses told AFP.
A child opens his mouth while being tested for the COVID-19 coronavirus during a mass test at the Arena Nord in Frederikshavn, North Jutland, Denmark, on November 7, 2020 (Claus Bjoern Larsen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP )
However, there is concern that one variant “will emerge as a second virus and dominate the population,” he noted.
“Finding a vaccine for one strain is already complicated, and if we have to do it for two, four or six strains it is even more complicated,” said the specialist.
He considered the decision to euthanize Danish mink as a “precaution”.
The sacrifice is ‘justifiable from a health perspective’
Francois Balloux, who teaches at University College London, agreed, telling AFP: “This measure is fully justifiable from a health perspective to eliminate the source of transmission of a serious virus.”
However, he also considered that “evoking the risk that the mink could generate a second pandemic seems excessive and counterproductive in the current climate of fear.”
Balloux noted that similar mutations already exist within the population and have not spread.
“We know that this virus with the same mutations arose in mink farms, was transmitted to humans and did not spread widely,” said the professor.
Still, it was not “completely impossible” that the new strain “could spread and make vaccines less effective,” he acknowledged.
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