Minks are appreciated at a farm in Gjol, northern Denmark on October 9, 2020.
HENNING BAGGER | Ritzau Scanpix | AFP via Getty Images
LONDON — The Sphere Health Organization said on Friday it would review biosecurity measures across the globe after Danish fitness authorities found a mutated form of the coronavirus present in the country’s mink farms.
The detection of the mutated virus magnitude minks has raised questions about the effectiveness of a future Covid-19 vaccine.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen spoke earlier this week that the government planned to cull all 15 million minks in Danish farms to try to rub the risk of the animals re-transmitting the new strain of the coronavirus to humans.
Frederiksen described the situation as “very, very serious,” augury the mutated virus could have “devastating consequences” worldwide.
When asked about reports of the mutated virus all of a add up to minks during a news briefing on Friday, Dr. Maria van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, bid: “There is always a concern when you have a circulation and transmission from humans to animals and then animals to children.”
“We’ve been seeing this for a number of months now and what we understand is the minks have been infected with communicate with from humans and it circulates in the mink and then it can pass back to humans,” van Kerkhove said from WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
“Each one of these varies, each one of these mutations, whether they are identified in mink or they are identified in humans, need to be evaluated because we beggary to determine the importance of each of these. And if any of these changes means that the virus behaves differently,” van Kerkhove said.
“There’s a alone way to do that because there need to be studies to evaluate if there’s any changes in transmissibility or severity and if there are any implications for diagnostics for vaccines and therapeutics,” she continued.
“In this plight, there is a suggestion that some of these mutations may have some implications, but we need to do the proper studies to appraise this and that is ongoing right now.”
Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the World Health Organization’s emerging diseases and zoonosis section, speaks during a press conference following an emergency committee meeting over the new coronavirus in Geneva on Jan. 22, 2020.
Pierre Albouy | AFP | Getty Mental pictures
The United Nations health agency said it was working with regional offices in Europe, the Western Pacific, and the Americas because there are multifarious mink farms present in countries across the globe.
We are “looking at the biosecurity on the mink farms, looking at the surveillance that’s episode in these mink farms and to support countries in taking the right steps to prevent the virus to continue to circulate in minks — and to retard spillover events from happening,” van Kerkhove said.
Minks are ‘very good hosts’ for the virus
To date, more than 48.8 million people arrange contracted the coronavirus worldwide, with 1.23 million related deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Drugmakers and inquiry centers are scrambling to deliver a safe and effective vaccine in an attempt to bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S.’s unsurpassed expert on infectious disease, said he believed it would only be a matter of weeks before the findings of a potential Covid vaccine liking be known.
The reports of a mutated coronavirus among the mink population in Denmark, one of the world’s main mink fur exporters, has triggered involvement about the effectiveness of a potential vaccine.
“I think it is very important to recognize that these types of things prove all of the time. This is a global pandemic and many millions (of people) have been infected and many millions of zooids have been exposed,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said during the for all that briefing.
“There is always a potential that the virus can then come back to humans and that is a concern because mammal species be partial to mink are very good hosts in a sense and the virus can evolve within those species especially if there are goodly numbers packed closely together,” Ryan said.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen addresses a throw ones arms about conference on the novel coronavirus COVID-19 at the State Department in Copenhagen, Denmark on April 6, 2020.
PHILIP DAVALI | Ritzau Scanpix | AFP via Getty Allusions
“We have to look at that viral evolution, we have to create the biosecurity around farms like that so that there is not that connection back with human populations. And we have to address all of those issues. But, right now, the evidence that we have does not bring up that this variant is in any way different in the way it behaves,” he added.
Ryan said the WHO would have to evaluate whether the transforming of the virus among the mink population is different in terms of its clinical severity or whether there is any implication for diagnostics or vaccines. “But we are a extended, long way away from making any determination of that kind,” he said.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Group’s chief scientist, said it would be unwise to jump to any conclusions following reports of the mutated virus found amongst mink farms in Denmark.
“I think that we need to wait and see what the implications are, but I don’t think we should come to any conclusions less whether this particular mutation is going to impact vaccine efficacy or not,” Swaminathan said.
“We don’t have any evidence at the minute that it would. But we will update you as we get more information.”