Denmark To Kill Over 15 Million Minks After A New Strand Causing Covid-19 Surfaces, Bigger Challenge Ahead In Absence Of Vaccine?

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had on Wednesday announced that the country will kill over 15 million minks after a variant of the SARS-Cov-2 virus that causes the Covid-19 disease had been transmitted from animals to 12 people and it may impact a vaccine's effectiveness in such a scenario.

Representative Photo (AFP/Getty)

New Delhi: The World Health Organisation has come out with a list of six countries where new cases of coronavirus linked to mink farms have been reported. A WHO statement revealed that these nations include Denmark, United States of America, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.  Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had on Wednesday announced that the country will kill over 15 million minks after a variant of the SARS-Cov-2 virus that causes the Covid-19 disease had been transmitted from animals to 12 people and that can potentially impact a vaccine's effectiveness. This transmission between minks and humans may not really make the infection more dangerous, but scientists are alarmed by the announcement from Denmark, AFP reported. The scientists are on crossroads over this announcement as many are not convinced about the danger and even the claims to begin with. Commenting about this, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York wrote on Twitter, "I really wish that the trend of science by press release would stop. There's no reason why the genomic data couldn't be shared, which would allow the scientific community to evaluate these claims. It's hard to communicate risk when you haven't seen the data".

But I really wish that the trend of science by press release would stop. There's no reason why the genomic data couldn't be shared, which would allow the scientific community to evaluate these claims. It's hard to communicate risk when you haven't seen the data.

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) November 5, 2020

There are no reports of new SARS-Cov-2 variants being more dangerous or infectious than the one that has gripped the world since the begining of 2020. A notable point here is that Coronavirus disease is a pre-existing one which was previously commonly spotted in cattles but what made SARS-Cov-2 different was that for the first time it was able to jump into humans and infect them at a large scale. Even if this new strain may not be more contagious as this point there are concerns that it emerges like a second virus to potentially dominate the population. Expecially troubling at a time when the vaccine for existing strain is yet to be developed and there is a new strain to deal with. For now, with very little information available, there remain doubts and concerns while healthcare professionals advice people to not panic over this development and continue to excercise necessary precautions. WATCH | PM Modi at 51st Annual Convocation of IIT: COVID-19 taught us a lot