Photographer: Morten Stricker / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Morten Stricker / AFP / Getty Images
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Denmark will dig up millions of dead minks after a hasty cull and burial was intended to eradicate a coronavirus mutation, with the rotting carcasses presenting a new risk of contamination.
The Danish parliament agreed on Sunday to excavate about 4 million minks, the Ministry of Food and Veterinary Affairs said. The animals will be exhumed after six months, which was considered long enough to ensure that the bodies are free of the virus and safe to handle. Once excavated, the mink is incinerated as industrial waste.
The government is trying to close a chapter that forced a cabinet minister to resign, ending Denmark’s reputation as a country that had fought the pandemic better than most.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has had to defend her role in the debacle after it emerged that she initially did not have the legal mandate to demand a complete culling of Denmark’s approximately 15.4 million minks. The hasty and messy process that followed was harshly criticized by the country’s parliament and the country’s mink industry, which was the largest in the world just a few months ago.
But Frederiksen has reiterated her initial warning that her government’s decision to require all Danish minks to be culled was justified. The country’s top epidemiologist at the time warned that the animals were highly efficient at spreading the coronavirus, and Frederiksen said Danish scientists were concerned that the mutation found in the country’s minks could derail vaccination efforts. .
The mink risk
There are a number of other mink producing countries that have detected strains of coronavirus in the animals, namely Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US. None have taken the same drastic steps as Denmark so far.
In early November, the World Health Organization said the coronavirus mutation found in Denmark “ highlights the important role that cultured mink populations can play in the continued transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the critical role of strong surveillance, sampling and sequencing of SARS-CoV-2, especially in areas where such animal reservoirs are identified. “
The organization said at the time it “advises all countries to step up surveillance of Covid-19 at the animal-human interface where susceptible animal reservoirs are identified, including mink farms.”