More than 100 tissues infected with SARS-CoV-2 have fled from farms in Denmark, the situation could become unmanageable



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“Several thousand tissues are leaking every year,” said Sten Mortensen, veterinary research manager at the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. It is estimated that this year 5 percent. the refugees may have been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

These fur-cured animals can transmit the virus to wildlife in the wild, while millions of tissues that are still grown on farms are destroyed to prevent the virus from spreading and mutating.

Several hundred farms have already reported the infection, which has been taken over by mink. As a result, the Danish government has ordered that all tissues grown in Denmark must be destroyed to prevent further spread of the virus.

Circulating in tissues, the virus also acquired several new mutations. This mutated virus leapt from tissues to humans, albeit in small quantities. Authorities fear that the spread of the mutated virus could threaten to reduce the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

It is true that experts are skeptical about the validity of such fears; point out that there is not enough evidence so far to say that the mutated virus is in any way resistant to vaccines. Not only that, the Danish government cannot legally order farmers to destroy healthy animals. According to the AP news agency, despite the dubious legal basis for that order, more than 10 million people have already been exterminated in Denmark. of 17 million tissues grown in this country.

No cases of the mutated tissue virus have been reported in the past two weeks, but authorities are now warning that the virus may still be spreading, but is now invisible in nature.

In general, minks are not prone to group in the wild, they prefer to live in solitude, so the risk of transmitting the virus to other animals is not high, says S. Mortensen.

Other animals susceptible to the virus, such as cats or martyrs, are more likely to become infected when they eat the infected tissue or come into contact with their feces.

Denmark, for example, is home to a wild population of black ferrets (Mustela putorius) related to martens and fabrics.

If SARS-CoV-2 were to spread uncontrollably in nature in several different animal species, “there would be a constant pandemic threat to humans and animals,” said Marion Koopmans, director of virology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

It’s also likely that as the virus circulates, it will mutate and acquire the ability to spread to a wider range of wildlife species, said Joanne Santini, a microbiologist at the University of London.

Infected tissues have already been reported in tissue farms in the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United States and Lithuania. As a result, farm owners have already had to destroy thousands of animals.

In US laboratories, researchers are developing a tissue vaccine against the coronavirus, thus protecting both animals and the entire industry.

Activists, on the other hand, are calling for all farm-raised fur animals to be destroyed and for the industry to be banned altogether, thus protecting tissues from unnecessary suffering and reducing the risk of future pandemics.



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