Russia to vaccinate mink population

MOSCOW: Russia will protectively vaccinate its mink population against Covid19 after other countries identified cases of the virus in the animals, the acting head of a big Russian state fur company has said.

Ivan Nesterov, acting head of state fur company Russian Sable, made the comments to the Zvezda TV station, which is run by the country’s defence ministry, on Monday.

When reached on Tuesday, he redirected questions to the agriculture ministry, saying it was better if that body provided official comments.

In a recording of his interview to Zvezda, he could be heard saying that authorities were testing the vaccine and planned to vaccinate the mink population once the process was finished.

He said the measure was a precautionary one, and Russia had no scientific confirmation that the virus could be passed from minks to humans and had not detected the virus in Russian minks. — Reuters