[ad_1]
The Danish government has secured a political majority for a plan to exhume and incinerate millions of mink carcasses that were urgently euthanized and buried last month to combat a coronavirus mutation, a cabinet member said on Sunday.
About 4 million carcasses of slaughtered animals were buried in mass graves on army-owned land, raising fears that the decomposition of the carcasses could contaminate drinking water or areas where people swim.
More than 15 million minks have been euthanized since November after a coronavirus mutation was discovered to spread between these animals and humans.
According to the agreement announced on Sunday, the bodies will be exhumed and incinerated after a period of six months, when they no longer present a risk of contagion, reports Agerpres.
This was one of three solutions proposed by the Danish Food and Veterinary Administration.
“Six months seems like a long time … but it is clearly the safest solution,” said Rasmus Prehn, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Excavations are expected to begin in May and the process of removing the corpses will be completed in July.
Center and left parties, as well as the Social Democratic government, said they had taken into account the findings that the bodies did not pose an immediate risk to drinking water sources.
The concerns that led to a mass killing were sparked by one of five virus mutations that were found to weaken the human body’s ability to produce antibodies, which could pose a risk for future vaccines against the new coronavirus.
Later, the government recognized that it had no legal basis for the measure to slaughter the entire population of farm minks in the country.
The logistical challenge of removing such a large number of dead animals led authorities to bury some of the minks in pits in a military area in western Denmark, two meters deep.
Government officials later said they plan to excavate the mines after some bodies surfaced from mass graves, most likely due to gases emitted during the decomposition process that pushed the bodies out of the ground. The media called this phenomenon “zombie minks.”
A bill will be passed on Monday that bans mink growth until 2022.
Regarding the mutation that has raised concerns, called “Cluster 5”, Denmark announced on 19 November that it is no longer present.
The mink is the only animal identified so far with the potential to contract COVID-19 in humans and recontaminate humans.
Publisher: GC
