Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
The virus mutations that have developed among corona-infected Danish minks risk sabotaging the possibility for people to be vaccinated against covid-19. This is stated by a Danish authority.
It is the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), the Danish infection control authority, that warns that mink farmers can develop into pure "virus factories", states Danmarks Radio . This is because the virus has been shown to mutate on the farms - each of which houses between 10,000 and 15,000 animals.
When the authorities in that situation decided that all minks within a radius of 7.8 kilometers from an infected mink farm should be killed, it aroused criticism. According to SSI, the decision was made partly due to concerns about what a mutated mink virus can do.
- What worries us is that viruses that have mutated in these minks come out into the community and infect people with a virus strain that is resistant to the vaccines that are being developed. It is the vaccines that will "save us" by achieving herd immunity so that we can return to normal, says Anders Fomsgaard who is responsible for virus research and development at SSI to DR.
It is the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), the Danish infection control authority, that warns that mink farmers can develop into pure "virus factories", states Danmarks Radio . This is because the virus has been shown to mutate on the farms - each of which houses between 10,000 and 15,000 animals.
Last Thursday, the killing of up to one million minks began in Denmark , which ATL has previously reported. 80 mink farms, mainly in the north, but also to some extent in central Jutland, have been infected by covid-19. The virus can be transmitted between humans and mink - in both directions. More than 150 employees on the mink farms have been infected.
When the authorities in that situation decided that all minks within a radius of 7.8 kilometers from an infected mink farm should be killed, it aroused criticism. According to SSI, the decision was made partly due to concerns about what a mutated mink virus can do.
- What worries us is that viruses that have mutated in these minks come out into the community and infect people with a virus strain that is resistant to the vaccines that are being developed. It is the vaccines that will "save us" by achieving herd immunity so that we can return to normal, says Anders Fomsgaard who is responsible for virus research and development at SSI to DR.
