Danish Covid-19 mink variant could spark new pandemic, scientists warn

Mutations in mink herds and wildlife such as weasels, badgers, ferrets may pose risk to human health and vaccine development

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A Danish vaccine specialist has warned that a new wave of coronavirus could be started by the Covid-19 mink variant.

The worst-case scenario is that we would start off a new pandemic in Denmark. There's a risk that this mutated virus is so different from the others that we'd have to put new things in a vaccine and therefore [the mutation] would slam us all in the whole world back to the start," said Prof Kare Molbak, vaccine expert and director of infectious diseases at Denmark's State Serum Institute (SSI).