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All minks in Denmark must die after several Danes were infected with a mutated coronavirus through them.
According to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, the mutation could mean that the vaccine being produced now will have no chance against the virus.
– Sounds drastic, says virus researcher Ali Mirazimi.
Denmark is the world’s largest producer of mink fur. But when the country’s more than 15 million minks must be slaughtered as soon as possible, it is not for fur production.
Although the coronavirus was detected in 207 mink farms, all the animals on the 1,080 farms in Denmark must be culled.
– I understand that you kill infected minks, but killing them all sounds drastic, says Ali Mirazimi, a professor of virology at the Karolinska Institutet who works with vaccines against covid-19.
Photo: Patric Söderström / TT
Mink at a Swedish mink farm in Blekinge.
This summer there was already a serious spread of the infection among Danish minks. But what prompted the authorities to decide on the mass killing is that twelve people who were infected with the coronavirus through mink now turn out to carry a mutated form of the virus.
– A mutation can pose the risk that future vaccines will not work properly. Therefore, it is necessary to kill all minks, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during a press conference on Wednesday.
On Thursday afternoon, news came that seven municipalities in North Jutland are being closed with severe restrictions in a bid to make the new variant of the virus disappear.
Photo: Mette Mørk / TT
Minker on a farm in Jutland, Denmark.
This is how the vaccine can be affected
It is not yet known exactly how the mutation affected the virus. The Danish Infection Control Agency SSI, the Swedish Serum Institute, has not released the report behind the murder decision.
What would make the vaccine that is now being produced lose its effect is if the mutation occurs in the virus’s so-called nail protein, the tags that allow the virus to enter cells. Most of the vaccines produced today target these particular nail proteins in an attempt to make the virus less harmful.
– Mutations happen all the time, but so far we haven’t seen the nail protein being affected. But if you suddenly see something that indicates that the nail protein is changing, of course we need to take a closer look, says Ali Mirazimi.
Also in Sweden, minks have been infected by the new corona virus, but not to the same extent as minks in the neighboring country. In Denmark, it is more common for many more minks to be huddled in cages close to each other, leading to a dramatic infection.
No mutation has been reported among minks in Sweden. But a large proportion of them, about 80 percent, will die within two weeks anyway to become furs.
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