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According to the Danish health authorities who detected and investigated it, the new strain of SARS-CoV-2 is less sensitive to antibodies than others already in circulation around the world, which may mean that current vaccines in development may be out of date even before completion.
“We have a great responsibility towards our own population, but with the mutation that has been detected, we have an even greater responsibility towards the rest of the world,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen explained at a press conference.
“The mutant mink virus may pose a risk to the efficacy of a future vaccine,” Frederiksen said, adding that “there are risks of it spreading from Denmark to other countries.”
“The worst case scenario is a new pandemic originating in Denmark,” confirmed Kare Molbak, director of the Serum State Institute, responsible for the Danish response to infectious diseases and who conducted research on the new strain.
The lower sensitivity to antibodies is extremely concerning, Molbak acknowledged, and “that’s why we have to take this very seriously.”
The mink was infected by humans with SARS-CoV-2 and became the vector of contagion itself. The conditions for raising the animals, of several individuals in cages glued together, may have facilitated not only the transmission of the coronavirus between them but also the resistant mutation now detected.
The solution proposed by Fredriksen was the slaughter of the entire mink population of the country, estimated at between 15 and 17 million animals raised to supply the fur coat industry. The police, army and national guard will be deployed to the farms so that the massacre takes place as soon as possible, the Danish prime minister announced. In addition to Denmark, the world’s largest producer of mink fur, similar outbreaks have occurred in Spain and the Netherlands in recent months, resulting in the slaughter of hundreds of animals to contain the spread of the virus.
Since June, Denmark has been slaughtering animals infected with SARS-CoV-2, but has failed to solve the problem, especially in the north of the country. Some of these areas will now be under stricter restrictions and their populations will be analyzed for possible chains of transmission.
The State Serum Institute’s findings have already been shared with the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
WHO Emergency Response Director Mike Ryan called last Friday for comprehensive investigations to be conducted into the “complex and very complex problem” of humans, outside of China, infecting other animal species, which in turn transmit the virus to humans humans.
The possibility that the new coronavirus remains in animal products for human consumption, even in freezing conditions, has also been addressed with some concern in recent months.
SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus that originates in Chinese bat populations and has mutated to spread to other species. The infection was facilitated by markets in China that sell these and other live animals for human consumption for their meat.
Since the first large-scale infections detected in December 2019 in China, the new coronavirus has infected more than 46.9 million people worldwide and the disease it causes, Covid-19, is associated with 1.2 million. . deceased.
