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CONCERNED: Health authorities are tightening to prevent the mink virus from reaching Norway. Photo: Ørn E. Borgen
To prevent the mink virus from reaching Norway, Espen Nakstad now asks everyone coming from Denmark to go directly to quarantine, inform the municipality and get tested.
The Norwegian Health Directorate also requests that everyone who has come from Denmark be quarantined for ten days after arrival, regardless of test results.
– This is very important so that we do not spread the new strain of mink virus in Denmark, which we fear may reduce the effect of a future vaccine, says assistant health director Espen Nakstad to VG.
It also says that everyone coming from Denmark should report this when they get tested, so that positive samples are sent from the labs for further analysis at the National Institute of Public Health.
– The consequences can be great
From night to Monday, all people from red countries must submit a negative test taken less than 72 hours before entry and be in a corona hotel.
– We are not sure whether this variant of the virus has reached Norway or not. But we still want to prevent this from spreading in Norwegian society. That is why we come out with this information now.
This weekend, the Norwegian Health Directorate and NIPH received urgent assignments to assess measures regarding entry from Denmark due to crown outbreaks among mink. The UK closed its borders to the Danes on Saturday and is calling on everyone who has traveled to Denmark in the past two weeks to isolate themselves with their home. The Norwegian authorities do not do this.
The Norwegian Health Directorate recommends that those who arrive or have been in Denmark in the last 2 weeks:
- They should test themselves when they come to Norway
- They must inform the municipality they are in about where they have been and that they are in quarantine.
- You must complete the quarantine for 10 days from the arrival date, according to the current rules, regardless of the test result.
– What can be said at a general level is that if the probability is low, then the consequences could be great in the long term, writes the Norwegian Health Directorate in the assignment letter to the ministry.
FHI, for its part, recommends that all laboratories in the country send viruses that are detected in travelers from Denmark. NIPH will then prioritize analyzing these.
Furthermore, they suggest that:
- Explicit information is provided to all arrivals from Denmark.
- The test is offered to all travelers from Denmark upon arrival. The introduction of mandatory testing may be considered, but should not be forcibly tested.
Kill all the minks
The Danish government is doing everything possible to prevent the spread of the mutation they have found in mink.
It is one of them in particular, cluster 5, which is worrisome, because it has four different changes in the virus labels, that is, what is distinguished from the virus itself. This type can affect future vaccines. 12 Danes are infected with group 5, while more than 200 are infected with the other mutations.
Now they kill all the minks in the country, between 15 and 17 million, and have informed the world health authorities about the situation.
DENMARK: Danish authorities have already started killing the country’s 15-17 million minks in an attempt to stop the spread of the mutated coronavirus.
Here’s how the vaccine can change
Most vaccines are based on the coronavirus tag protein. It is precisely in this protein that the Danes now see a change and that, therefore, can affect the effect of vaccines.
– The vaccine will prevent the virus from entering our cells. The vaccine causes us to make antibodies against the virus. These antibodies block the virus’s ability to adhere to our cells. If the mink virus has changed there, in that area, the vaccine antibodies won’t work as well. This is like a key in a lock, immunologist Anne Spurkland explained to VG on Saturday.
So accurate are the antibodies against marker proteins – if you get changes in the locks, the key will no longer fit.
MUTATION: The Danes have discovered changes in an area of the label, that is, the red that stands out. This area is important because of how easy it is to bind to the human cell. Photograph: NIH / X80001
Bats and minks are the only animals we know of that transmit coronavirus to humans. Because mink has a completely different biology than humans, it can cause mutations with greater changes than what happens between humans.
– That the virus can switches Coming back and forth between humans and minks is a bit scary. This means that mutations in the virus can have quite a different effect than if it had only been transmitted from person to person.
When the corona vaccine is ready for use, the demand will be much greater than the number of doses we have access to. Therefore, a priority group of people will get it before others:
