China’s gung ho biolabs have ‘REPEATEDLY released deadly viruses onto the world’ – so Covid ‘lab leak’ is no shock
CHINA’S gung ho approach to biolab safety means the theory that Covid came from one in Wuhan is no shock.
The country has seen at major leaks from labs in the past, while the poor protection given to staff has increased the risk.
There is a growing suspicion the Covid virus may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
What was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory has gained traction to the extent that President Joe Biden has ordered US spies to investigate.
British intelligence has also reportedly recently assessed the theory and upgraded its likeliness from "remote" to "feasible".
China’s refusal to allow a full investigation and increasingly shrill denials have fuelled suspicion that it is seeking to cover up culpability.
Shocking biosecurity lapses spanning over 40 years have also led to some to question the official Chinese line that the disease was passed from animals to humans.
in 2004, two Chinese researchers were exposed to SARS and spread the disease to others, killing one.
There are also suspicions an H1N1 influenza epidemic in the late 1970s may have leaked from a lab, while an outbreak of a bacterial infection in 2020 was attributed to a leak from a vaccine plant.
Richard H Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, is one of the growing number of scientists who have said the lab leak theory needs to be fully examined.
He told The Sun Online there were “two separate laboratory accidents in Beijing in 2004” in which a SARS virus was entered into the human population.
SARS stands for Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome and SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Professor Ebright said staff working on projects around bat SARS-related coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were poorly protected and there was a lax approach to biosecurity.
He said they used “personal protective equipment, usually just gloves; sometimes not even gloves” and safety standards “were usually just Biosafety level 2”.
Professor Ebright said “that would pose a high risk of infection of field-collection, field-survey, or laboratory staff upon contact with a virus having the transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2”.
The 1977 H1N1 outbreak in north-eastern China, concentrated in the cities of Tianjin, Lioning and Jilin remains a mystery but one common theory is that it came from a lab leak.
A peer reviewed scientific paper in 2010 suggested said the virus reappeared after a 20-year absence.
"Genetic analysis indicated that this strain was missing decades of nucleotide sequence evolution, suggesting an accidental release of a frozen laboratory strain into the general population."
The lab from where this could have leak has been identified.
Professor Ebright he has an open mind about whether Covid could have been transmitted to humans via animals he said there is “circumstantial evidence” which is “noteworthy”.
He said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology “has the world's largest collection of horseshoe-bat viruses, and that possessed and worked with the world's closest published relative of” Covid.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) - is the only facility in China which deals with bat coronaviruses.
Studies show that one of the viruses collected by the lab's scientists from a mine is a 96.2 per cent match for SARS-CoV-2 which causes Covid-19.
“The outbreak occurred in Wuhan, a city of 11 million persons that does not contain horseshoe-bat colonies and that is outside the flight range of the nearest known horseshoe-bat colonies," he said.
“The outbreak occurred in Wuhan, on the doorstep of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the laboratory that conducts the world's largest research project on horseshoe bat viruses.
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