Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking with his international counterparts to assess the risks to human health following the (a) H5N1 avian flu outbreak on a mink farm in Spain in October 2022 and (b) cases of mink to human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in mink farms.

A preliminary technical risk assessment for the current circulating avian influenza viruses was undertaken by UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) together with the Animal and Plant Health Agency and academic partners. This included consideration of the propensity to cause mammalian and human infections and was based on both United Kingdom and international data. A full technical group has been convened by UKHSA for the ongoing risk assessment. UKHSA continues to work with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the public health agencies of multiple countries on emerging influenza viruses.

UKHSA carries out routine genomic surveillance of COVID-19 variants. The risks from mink would come primarily from the generation of novel variants, which should they emerge would be significant only if widely transmissible from human-to-human. Novel variants of concern and variants under investigation are assessed for their risk to human health through UKHSA's standard COVID-19 epidemiological portfolio of severity. Where possible vaccine effectiveness analyses are carried out to understand whether emerging variants pose risks to the UK population. UKHSA also regularly share and receive data from WHO on emerging variants.