Mink
Minkistock

The Israeli Health Ministry is testing three Israeli citizens who returned recently from Denmark, on suspicion they were infected with a new mutation of the coronavirus.

The new strain is said to be able to spread from minks to humans, the Health Ministry said Monday.

Denmark has documented more than 200 cases of coronavirus infections spreading from minks to humans since June, the World Health Organization has said.

Authorities in Denmark have imposed a regional shutdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus from minks.

In addition, the government has ordered the culling of the country's entire population of farmed minks - requiring the destruction of as many as 17 million of the animals.

In at least a dozen cases, the mink-variant of the coronavirus has demonstrated a reduced sensitivity to human antibodies, Denmark's Statens Serum Institut says, making the strain more resilient.

More than a million minks were culled during the summer, with farms in the Netherlands, Spain, and Denmark being purged of infected minks.