Wuhan lab was performing experiments on bats from coronavirus COVID-19 caves: Report

The Daily Mail reported on Sunday (April 12) that coronavirus experiments were undertaken on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan at the Wuhan-based laboratory. Notably, the researchers were provided USD 3.7 million grant by the US government for these experiments.

Scientists have traced the sequencing of the COVID-19 genome to bats found in caves of Yunnan. Senior government sources in UK told the Daily Mail that while ‘the balance of scientific advice’ was that COVID-19 was first transmitted to humans from a wet market in Wuhan, it will not be wise to disregard the theory that an accident took place at the laboratory in Wuhan.

According to one unverified claim, it is likely that some researchers at Wuhan Institute of Virology could have become infected after being sprayed with blood containing the virus. It is likely that the local community got infected from the coronavirus postive scientists.

The Daily Mail reported that scientists at Wuhan laboratory undertook their experiments on bats as part of a project funded by the US National Institutes of Health.

The findings of the study were published in November 2017 under the heading: ‘Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus.’

It is learnt that all sampling procedures were performed after approval from from the Animal Ethics Committee of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Bat samplings were conducted ten times from April 2011 to October 2015 at different seasons in their natural habitat at a single location (cave) in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. Bats were trapped and faecal swab samples were collected,” reported Daily Mail.

In April 2018, another study titled ‘fatal swine acute diarrhoea syndrome caused by an HKU2-related coronavirus of bat origin’ described the research conducted at Wuhan lab as such: ‘Following a 2016 bat-related coronavirus outbreak on Chinese pig farms”.

The researchers involved in the study grew the virus in a lab and injected it into three-day-old piglets and the samples were taken from the intestines of sick piglets and these samples were ground up and fed to other piglets as well.

Last week, Cao Bin, a doctor at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, debunked the theory that coronavirus spread from Wuhan animal market, stressing that the research showed that 13 of the first 41 patients diagnosed with the infection did not come in contact with the market. “It seems clear that the seafood market is not the only origin of the virus,” he said.

Interestingly, Wuhan Institute of Virology is located ten miles from the now infamous wildlife market.

On Saturday, Anthony Bellotti, president of the US pressure group White Coat Waste, slammed the US for funding research projects in China. “Animals infected with viruses or otherwise sickened and abused in Chinese labs reportedly may be sold to wet markets for consumption once experiments are done,” he was quoted as saying by Daily Mail.

US Congressman Matt Gaetz said: “I’m disgusted to learn that for years the US government has been funding dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute, which may have contributed to the global spread of coronavirus, and research at other labs in China that have virtually no oversight from US authorities.”