Tatarstan minks tested for COVID-19

Minks aren’t only valuable fur

The mass eradication of minks in Denmark can have long-term consequences for the whole world’s fur market. The authorities of this country are planning to kill over 15 million animals because they contracted COVID-19 and are now allegedly posing a threat to humans. Not only 12 people who are said to be infected by the animals are causing the concern but also the fact that the infected minks carry a mutated virus that can influence the effectiveness of vaccines against coronavirus. The Netherlands is also going to destroy its livestock till New Year after Copenhagen, while Spain decided to do this in July.

Those who run a fur business in Russia and Tatarstan are shocked at what’s happening.

Nowadays only two of four fur farms breed the mink in the republic that was once famous for fur — Barsutsky agrofarm and Matyushino PLC. Koschakovsky farm got rid of this fur animal four years ago, Biryuli PLC killed all the livestock last year. Counterfeit products from Chain reduce prices for local fur making the business unprofitable, the farms explained. Plus, Green Peace’s influence, the youth’s diminished interest in fur, a fall in Russians’ quality of life. Now there is new trouble — coronavirus.

However, there haven’t been detected cases of COVID-19 in minks and polecats here. Though according to Vice Director of the Main Office of Veterinary of the Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers Ildar Nugumanov, coronavirus was registered among animals in 17 countries, including in Russia where a cat fell ill. The hosts who contracted the crafty virus infected them. While there aren’t officially confirmed opposite cases, but Nugumanov says this doesn’t exclude such a probability.

Vaccine for animals

The vice director of the Main Office of Veterinary told our newspaper that the Tatar interregional veterinary laboratory had test systems to diagnose coronavirus in animals. It is a development of the Federal Centre for Protection of Animals’ Health, which is a PRC method. A swab from the animals’ mouth and nose is taken like in people.

Specialists of the Main Tatarstan Office of Veterinary and Territorial Management of Russia’s agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor took swabs from minks. “Nowadays 15 samples have been examined, they are all negative so far,” Nugumanov said. He said that there is a plan to test animals for different diseases, they are done once in a quarter or twice a year, now COVID-19 has been added to this schedule. The most interesting thing is that scientists are working on how to protect not only humans but also animals from the “Chinese trouble”.

Animals can be treated even if they are infected. Most importantly, the animals’ state should be controlled. At the same time, the same medications used for humans are utilised.

The Main Office of Veterinary stresses that a lot turns on the management of fur farms, their compliance with the sanitary and epidemiological regime.

However, wearing masks and disinfecting hands isn’t a panacea yet, thinks biologist, correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor of Moscow State University’s Department of Medicine, Candidate for Pharmaceutical Sciences Yevgeny Abizov:

Strictly in masks and gloves

The heads of households we surveyed confirmed that they strictly followed instructions of supervisory bodies: they take their workers’ temperature every morning, wear masks and gloves, disinfect their hands. Moreover, people don’t closely contact minks in fur farms — they put food in the cages without touching the animals. Nikolay Kirillov added that Bersutsky even switched to one shift to limit the duration of people’s presence in the household, the admission for third persons was prohibited.

Both Bersutsky and Matyushino tested their minks for COVID-19 in August. “But we can’t guarantee daily they won’t get infected or somebody won’t bring the infection,” Nikolay Kirillov noted.

The directors’ opinion about vaccination didn’t coincide. Head of Matyushino PLC Firkat Gaynetdinov said that if veterinary services oblige them to vaccine the animals, they will do it, while Bersutsky claimed that it is a matter of the price of the vaccine. Director General of Biryulin fur farm Irshat Kamaliyev shrugged off the problem: “We will resolve the issue on the spot. The situation in Tatarstan is normal — there are no changes, there aren’t COVID-19, infected and recovered animals. We are examining them.” However, this year this farm isn’t breeding minks.

But they won’t certainly treat infected animals from the virus. It will be too expensive. “If the treatment for the mink is expensive, why breed it? We aren’t in our heyday,” Kirillov stressed.

Russia has a chance of reviving the sector

Famous fur producer, founder of Russian Fur company Viktor Konstantinopolsky forecasts that growth of prices for fur products, especially foreign ones, will be the first consequence of the destruction of minks in Europe. They won’t be widely available, considering the current dollar and euro rate.

However, new opportunities are opening for other representatives of the fur business. And here it is important who will make the first step.

“I think that today Russia has a very good chance of reviving our sector that was destroyed, it became husbandry for some reason. And today our fur farms are on the edge. If our government pays serious attention to this, with its support we can occupy a good niche in this business because China is the main consumer, and they use a lot of precisely Danish mink. I think we can occupy dominating positions in just 2-3 years and export fur like we did previously in the USSR when we had around 13,5 million heads of mink. Today they total 1,8 million, and they are dying. I consider we should be thinking precisely about this today. But if we miss the chance, China will take advantage of it,” Konstantinopolsky shared his vision.

He noted that now Russia breeds 2-3% of the whole world volume of mink, which was around 90 million skins. Here we should add the animals from China, which has from 30 to 50 million heads according to different data. But today China has cut the livestock to 5 million. The forecast for 2021 is 30 million mink skins, but as Denmark is getting rid of its “soft gold”, only 15 million will be left. The expert thinks that Russia, which exports only 300,000 skins at the moment and the main share is consumed in the domestic market, can fill the deficit of fur.

Dumping China

However, not everybody has a positive outlook. The grey market is the main problem when cheap Chinese fur is imported to Russia through Kazakhstan. Its quality isn’t as good as the Russian once, however, it is twice cheaper. And the purchaser votes with his wallet.

He thinks that responding to the world situation China can also increase the amount of livestock, it is good that minks proliferate well. And then it can export the fur to us for dumping prices.

“This is why even though prices for fur will go up, it won’t be for long. And even if the amount of livestock increases, we won’t go up like before. Russia used to have 400 fur farms, only 30 have left now,” Gaynetdinov complains.