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The Danish government is euthanizing millions of minks so the animals cannot become reservoirs for a mutated variant of the coronavirus. Denmark is the world market leader in this sector.
The Danish government has decreed that the 17 million minks from the 1,500 farms must be culled. With the radical step, the country wants to prevent efforts to find an effective corona vaccine from being undermined.
With 1,500 farms, 17 million animals and a share of around 40% of world production, Denmark is the world market leader in the mink farming industry. On Wednesday night, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced that the government had decided to temporarily shut down the entire sector and allow all animals to be euthanized. One can imagine that this radical decision was not made lightly. But the industry, which generates annual revenue equivalent to 1.2 billion Swiss francs, poses a threat to public health, not only in Denmark, but worldwide, as Kaare Mölbak of the Danish Serum Institute told the media.
Worrisome mutation
As early as June, it was observed in three places in North Jutland that mink became infected with the new coronavirus circulating in the Danish population. The state took immediate action and euthanized the animals from the affected farms. The situation initially calmed down. Looking ahead to November, when the animals are supposedly mature, authorities apparently gave up on a stricter regime. However, a second outbreak in October was significantly larger, affecting around 1.5 million animals on several dozen farms. These were fired. The government had a 7.8 kilometer quarantine ring around the farms.
In the meantime, however, the Serum Institute considers it proven due to the geographic and temporal incidence that the virus in mink has not only changed, but is also transmitted to humans in this modified form. The mutation affects the so-called spike protein (with which the virus attaches itself to cells). Research using antibodies from recovered Covid 19 patients had shown that they were less capable of containing the reproduction of the mink variant of the virus than those of the non-mink variant.
Therefore, the Danish Serum Institute sees a great danger that the mink variant of the virus could undermine the effectiveness of a vaccine in the population if it spreads. This is because the vaccines that are being developed do not include this variant.
In a risk assessment presented to policy makers in early November, the Serum Institute wrote that if mink production were to continue in 2021, it could be assumed that the animal population would continue to be susceptible to infections because Sars-CoV-2 is still in the population. circulate and there is no herd immunity. The goal of controlling the Covid 19 epidemic through a vaccination campaign could be in serious jeopardy.
Despair in a major agricultural sector
It was this report that led the government to take the radical step of “temporarily” closing the entire sector and slaughtering all the animals. Denmark does not want to face the charge that a new wave of infections even more difficult to control is spreading around the world from its territory and undoing current efforts to control Sars-CoV-2.
Prime Minister Frederiksen promised a lot of help to the mink farmers, who are now left with nothing. Farms are usually smaller family businesses with only a handful of employees. The farms are located in areas that offer few other employment opportunities outside of agriculture. If the sector will really rebuild it is currently in the stars. Therefore, opposition politicians criticized the government for acting too hastily and asked whether the radicalism of the measure was really appropriate for the situation.
Very controversial business
On a global scale, according to a study by the University of Copenhagen in 2017, Europe leads the way in the production of raw mink fur; the proportion is 80% without China or 60% with China. Production is very different within Europe; some countries have none, in others it is highly concentrated. Nowhere is the sector as important as in Denmark. Raw fur is the third most important agricultural export of animal origin (after pork and fish), and Danish mink fur is considered of high quality. Copenhagen Fur, the world’s largest auction house, is also located in the capital.
According to its website, Kopenhagen Fur has only accepted furs with a WelFur certificate, which is issued by an examining body and represents transparency and animal welfare standards, since 2020. However, the industry is highly controversial. The minks live very crowded in the farms; which is one of the reasons why the coronavirus was able to spread rapidly between animals. Animal rights activists describe keeping animals in narrow lattice cages as cruel to animals and argue that with the current possibilities for artificial fur production, raising animals for the sole purpose of producing fur has become unnecessary. .
