What to do now with mink farms in Spain: is there a risk of Covid?

The order issued by the authorities of Denmark sacrifice the 17 million copies of mink raised in the fur farms of this country makes this unique breeding practice again current also in Spain.

The crisis of Denmark is particularly tomb because various studies suggest it infected animals the new coronavirus may have facilitated the diffusion in humans of a new variant This pathology, a situation that would affect, among other issues of health importance, the effectiveness of vaccines in the validation process and forthcoming distribution.

If indeed the new variants propagated through mink farms were substantially different from those already known from SARS-CoV-2 (scientific name of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19) already created vaccines could lose effectiveness or not respond effectively in vaccinated people.

For months, after the first cases of Covid infection on farms in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain (in addition to the most recent cases in Denmark), various animal rights activists, environmental defense organizations and political parties have asked for the closure of all farms. these animals in Spain.

The government of Aragon, in fact, last July decreed the compulsory slaughter of 92,700 specimens in the farms of this community after having detected various cases of contagion in animals and in the personnel of these structures.

After confirming the seriousness of the new cases in Denmark, bodies such as WWF have once again called for the total and permanent closure of mink farms throughout Spain. The United We Can confederal group spoke in the same sense.

Veterinarians ask for calm

Sources at the General Council of Veterinary Colleges of Spain believe that “there is no need to be alarmed” by the Danish government’s decision to sacrifice millions of mink after the discovery of a new strain of the virus, according to statements gathered by Efe.

The Council of Veterinary Colleges asks for reassurance from the population although it recognizes that “it is not abnormal” that this virus has mutated, because it is common, although it is not constantly monitored. Furthermore, they add, mustelids, including minks, as well as felines, are species particularly prone to suffer from it and to infect it.

A luxury item, suspected

WWF Spain estimates that “there are already nearly 300 mink farms registered with coronavirus outbreaks in at least six different countries, including Spain, which suffered the epidemic in Teruel (Puebla de Valverde)”.

Gemma Rodríguez, WWF Spain’s species program manager, says: ‘We ask the Spanish government to act urgently by shutting down this potential source of Covid-19 contagion to avoid repeating another massive infection like the one that occurred on the farm of La. Puebla de Valverde (Teruel) with the sacrifice of nearly 100,000 animals’.

“We are facing a large health problem: the health risk of Covid-19 infection in fur farms now adds to the danger associated with the efficacy of the vaccine being developed,” says Gemma Rodríguez .

The WWF representative assures that there are “many reasons to put an end to this health bomb; In Spain we have 38 biological pumps [refiriendose al número de granjas de visones conocidas]We do not wait for them to explode as they did in Denmark and before that also in Holland ”.

More information in “La Vanguardia”:

They demand the closure of American mink farms as a “biological bomb” and health risk The 37 mink farms are “under surveillance”, but the WWF is calling for their closure.

Aragon orders the sacrifice of 92,700 mink on a farm due to a coronavirus outbreak.

WHO has asked the Danish authorities for more information on the coronavirus mutation in mink.

Mink coronavirus mutation threatens vaccine.