Denmark, the former largest exporter of mink fur, will allow mink breeding again after culling its entire mink population to combat Covid-19, the country’s Agriculture Ministry said on Friday, AFP and Agerpres reported.

“The temporary ban on mink breeding expires at the end of the year,” the ministry said in a statement with reference to the recommendations of health authorities.

Farmers will have to follow a strict infection prevention and control model developed by veterinary and sanitary authorities, he said.

Since November 2020, the Danish government has launched an urgent culling campaign to cull more than 15 million mink, with the mink being the only animal to date confidently identified as capable of both contracting and re-infecting humans with Covid-19.

This measure was taken hastily to combat the risk of the coronavirus mutating into mink, and their breeding was subsequently banned in 2021 and 2022.

The slaughter campaign turned into a political nightmare for the Social Democratic executive, as it later emerged that the government had no legal basis to impose it on mink farmers.

In early July, a commission of inquiry set up to determine responsibility in the case concluded that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had made “highly misleading” statements without the “knowledge or perspective” to speak. She received only a minor reprimand.

A mutation discovered in Danish minks, which was quickly declared eliminated, but highlighted the danger posed by mutations of the new coronavirus.