Mink may get vaccines too, as vets rush to develop shots for the super-spreader animals

Millions of mink were culled in Denmark over fears their would incubate virulent new variants

Credit: Ole Jensen/Getty Images Europe

American and Russian researchers are reported to be working on Covid-19 vaccines for mink after the animals proved highly susceptible to the coronavirus pandemic.

Two US firms are already testing vaccines and seeking to license their products with the US Department of Agriculture, the New York Times reported.

The commercially-farmed, weasel-like animals have suffered large outbreaks of disease in several countries and then passed mutated strains back into the human population.

The risk that mink farms could become a reservoir for virulent new variants saw Denmark in November order a cull of its entire farmed mink population of more than 15 million animals.

The rushed cull decision turned into a national scandal after prime minister Mette Frederiksen’s government acknowledged that it had no legal right to order a cull of minks not contaminated by the Covid-19 variant. Putrefying mink bodies then began to re-emerge from hastily dug mass graves as they were forced upwards by the pressure of gasses from decomposition.

Mink outbreaks were also reported on farms in the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Italy and the US.

A large US veterinary pharmaceutical company called Zoetis and a smaller firm called Medgene Labs are now both reported to be testing vaccines in mink.

Both vaccines are said to be similar to human vaccines which use insect cells to produce the spike protein on the coronavirus, which is then attached to a harmless virus and tricks the immune system into preparing for infection by the real coronavirus.

Russian and Finnish researchers are also working on the problem.

Mink are members of the weasel family, along with ferrets, and appear to be easily infected with the coronavirus. Crowded farming conditions can mean infections spread quickly, raising the possibility of mutations forming.

Both Zoetis and Medgene said they had begun working on vaccines for animals as soon as the pandemic took off in early 2020.