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Scientists in the UK are working to obtain samples of a mutant form of coronavirus that emerged in Danish mink farms and spread to humans, prompting ministers to ban non-British citizens from arriving from Denmark.
Danish health authorities raised the alarm over the mutant virus last week and announced the elimination of the country’s 17 million minks, as the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) in Copenhagen warned of possible “serious consequences” for vaccines if its international spread was allowed.
Testing in Denmark has detected more than 200 people with mink farm-related coronavirus mutations since June, but concern centers on a dozen cases in North Jutland of people who fell ill in September with a unique variant of the virus. virus.
Known as “group five,” the variant has four separate mutations in the so-called spike protein that the virus uses to enter cells and on which most vaccines are based.
SSI researchers found that antibodies from people who recovered from the coronavirus were less effective at neutralizing the mutant strain, but they have not released the details of their experiments. There is no evidence that the virus, found on five Danish mink farms, spreads more easily or causes more serious disease in humans than common strains of the virus.
While Danish scientists believe the mutations are concerning because of their potential to make vaccines less effective, one expert told The Guardian that the fears were exaggerated and that the group five variant may have already died in humans.
Eight of the dozen cases in Denmark had direct contact with the mink growing industry, and only four were identified in the local community.
Amid the uncertainty, scientists advising the UK government participated in talks over the weekend to acquire samples of the mutant virus from Danish authorities. The virus will undergo a series of tests to investigate whether or not it evades the antibodies of recovered patients and those who participated in vaccine trials.
Other experiments will focus on how well the mutant virus grows in human cells, how well it can spread between humans, and why the mutations arose in the first place. At least six countries, including Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, and the US, have reported coronavirus outbreaks in mink farms.
Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the UK government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, said the mutations may be nothing more than the virus evolving to spread in mink, but added that it was sensible to stop the spread. “As a matter of precaution” until scientists had more proof.
“It could be that the mutations mean something in terms of mink-to-mink transmission, but they are irrelevant to human transmission,” he said.
Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Institute of Genetics, said minks are highly susceptible to the coronavirus and since they outnumber humans three to one in Denmark, it was sensible to euthanize the animals to prevent them from feeding. the epidemic.
Balloux criticized what he called “alarmist” messages from Denmark about the threat posed by mutations, saying that the group five variant may well have become extinct in humans because it did not spread effectively.
“I really don’t think we should be particularly concerned about them. There are many other mutations that are not acquired in mink that are of more concern in terms of vaccine escape, “he said. One of these mutations, known as N439K, has already been found to confer some resistance to antibodies.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Welfare said there was no evidence that the new strain had spread from Denmark to the UK, adding: “While there have been some reports of transmission of mink to humans, we do not consider this to be a risk as there are no fur farms in the UK.
“We are working closely with international partners to understand the situation in Denmark and we continue to keep the situation under review,” they said.
