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The writer is a science commentator
Denmark is desperate not to become the next Wuhan. The country’s Social Democrat-led minority government has sought to massively slaughter its mink population after a mutated form of coronavirus was found in animals and workers on mink farms.
The drastic step, which includes the lockdown of the northwest of the country until December 3, aims to stop the rise of a virus potentially capable of escaping Covid-19 vaccines. The move is particularly significant given the good news on Monday that Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine appears to be very effective.
The government has plans to destroy the entire mink population. But he currently lacks parliamentary support to pass the measure after the country’s center-right contingent said it would block it. Mogens Jensen, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, clarified on Monday that under current Danish law, any infected mink and those within an 8 km safe zone can be killed, but not healthy mink outside these limits.
The World Health Organization has so far hesitated to confirm that the slaughter of 17 million animals is necessary. But the country’s Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod nevertheless defended the decision on Friday: “We would rather go too far than take a step too little to fight Covid-19.” By standardizing the overreaction principle, the Copenhagen command signals an important new precedent in global public health.
The alarm was raised by the country’s National Serum Institute, which noted that various mutated forms of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, were spreading among furry farm animals, and that these had once again passed from animals to workers. Five different groups of mutations were detected in a total of 214 people. Concerns focused on ‘cluster 5’, a single variant found in a dozen people in North Jutland.
This form of the virus contains four mutations in the spike protein, which is the part of the virus recognized by the immune system. Most vaccines are designed to mimic this spike protein in order to generate antibodies. SSI researchers found that anti-coronavirus antibodies taken from recovered patients had reduced susceptibility to cluster 5 virus, suggesting – but not proving – that this particular mutant might be more difficult for the system to recognize and fight off. immune. Of the other four groups, one did not raise concerns and three are under investigation.
Emma Hodcroft, a researcher at the University of Bern who has gathered public information on mink variants, warned of panic while applauding the Danish move. In a long Twitter thread, she underlined that “the mutations in [the spike protein] are not uncommon ”.
Ultan Power, professor of molecular virology at Queen’s University, Belfast, has been involved in the development of vaccines against respiratory diseases. Virologists, he says, are “perpetually concerned about mutations,” especially those that increase the transmission or severity of the disease. He adds, “Mutations in proteins such as the Sars-Cov-2 spike protein can result in a protein that is no longer recognized effectively by antibodies against an original infection or vaccine. Such mutations would have dramatic consequences for a vaccine, since the vaccine may not induce protective immunity. The seasonal flu shots are updated every year for this reason.
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The coronavirus is constantly changing, albeit relatively slowly. Still, mink farms have become an active reservoir for new variants, with cases also found in the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Italy and the United States, according to the World Organization for Animal Health. The Dutch and the Spanish slaughtered the infected animals. China, the largest producer, has not reported any cases.
There is both fallout, when the virus moves from animals to humans, and “fallout”, when the virus returns from humans to animals. Each crossing of the species barrier offers a unique opportunity for multiple genetic changes with unpredictable effects.
This is how the coronavirus pandemic is said to have started in Wuhan, with the virus likely having passed from bats to humans via an intermediate species such as pangolins, a scaly anteater. Earlier intervention could have stopped the spread of Covid-19 from China, although we can never predict with certainty an alternate future that might have unfolded.
But we do know from recent, bitter experience that it’s impossible to turn back the clock on an uncontained contagious virus – and that success can seem overkill because the threat doesn’t materialize. No country wants to be responsible for unblocking a vaccine-resistant strain just as scientists are advancing. It’s an unenviable call but, by euthanizing an already dying unsustainable industry, Denmark deserves praise for having learned the lessons of this pandemic.
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