Some seventeen million mink slaughtered because of a mutation in the Covid-19 virus that could defeat the vaccines under development.
Remember, it was November in Denmark.
This time around, the UK is on the alert.
In the south of England, where the coronavirus is galloping, analyzes revealed that 1,000 sick patients were carriers of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2.
For now, the British health authorities want to be reassuring.
"Nothing suggests" that this new variant causes a worsening of the disease or that it renders the current vaccination campaign ineffective, explains Matt Hancock, the Minister of Health, who nevertheless immediately alerted the World Health Organization (WHO), because, he believes, it could be involved in the "exponential" spread of the virus in the south-east of England, without knowing "to what extent".
An international database
Variants of Covid-19, the WHO has already seen a lot.
It's common, assures Michael Ryan, responsible for health emergencies: “Does that make the virus more serious?
Is it spread more easily?
Does this complicate the diagnosis?
Are the effects of the vaccine affected by this mutation?
These are the questions that arise and we have no information to suggest that this is the case, ”he summarizes.
Since the appearance of SARS-CoV-2, genetic mutations in this coronavirus have been tracked around the world by researchers, who sequence the genome of viruses they find and share them on an international database, GISAID, a treasure trove of tens of thousands of sequences.
And, for now, despite some 25 mutations already identified since its detection in Wuhan, China, a year ago, there is no clear indication that it has mutated in such a way as to significantly modify its effects on humans.
Will this new strain spotted in England be a game-changer?
Driven by our own immune system
"Mutations are part of the normal operating mode for viruses," explains Vincent Enouf, deputy head of the National Reference Center for Respiratory Viruses (Institut Pasteur) in Paris.
This is even the trick they use to stay one step ahead of our immune responses: when we develop antibodies against a virus, it will seek to change its envelope to escape recognition by the antibodies and immune cells, otherwise it will perish.
In fact, it's our own immune system that causes the virus to change its external proteins and develop new strains to survive.
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