The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration confirmed on the 5th that in about three months, Denmark has completed the slaughter of more than 15 million mink in the country to prevent a Variant novel coronavirus found in breeding mink from infecting more people.
The government agency said that the slaughter of national mink farming has been completed, but some zoo mink or domestic pet mink may still survive.
The Danish government said on November 4 last year that 12 people in North Jutland were infected with the Variant novel coronavirus found on mink, and the government decided to slaughter all mink in Denmark.
This decision was strongly opposed by mink farmers, and the Danish government subsequently admitted that there was no legal basis for slaughtering mink nationwide, and the then Minister of Agriculture, Moens Jensen, resigned.
The Danish Parliament passed a government-sponsored bill last December to ban mink farming by the end of 2021.
This law provides a basis for slaughtering mink farming across the country.
Denmark is the world’s largest mink exporter.
The World Health Organization says that the novel coronavirus is transmitted from infected people to farmed mink, and mink then spreads COVID-19 among their peers, which poses a risk of transmission to people.
