Inside Wuhan’s shadowy coronavirus labs that create ‘super-viruses’ and conduct deadly experiments with infected bats
THIS is the sinister truth behind Wuhan's research labs - Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control - which created man-made coronaviruses and where scientists were sprayed with bad blood.
Last week, it emerged that the British government is "no longer discounting" theories Covid-19 was leaked from a laboratory in China - and the killer bug's former epicentre has two obvious candidates.
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First, there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) where researchers tinker with lethal bugs which have no cure in full body suits before being decontaminated in chemical showers.
Anyone working in its shadowy pressurised labs, where live animals are experimented on, has to exit through an airlock.
Back in 2015, experts at WIV engineered a new type of hybrid 'super-virus' that can infect humans, according to medical journal
Despite fears surrounding the research, the study was designed to show the risk of viruses carried by bats which could be transmitted to humans.
HYBRID VIRUS
And the city's second facility, named the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control (WCDC), is located only 300 yards from the wet market where the Covid-19 is believed to have first crossed from animals to humans.
A research paper titled 'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus' claims the lab kept as many as 605 bats for research purposes.
In a terrifying incident, scientists there were sprayed with blood and urine from the flying beasts, forcing them to go into quarantine, the paper claims.
WCDC researcher Tian Junhua, who is seen on video collecting the screeching animals, was sprayed with bat pee which was said to be "dripping like raindrops” from him after he forgot the wear his protective suit.
'I CAN FEEL THE FEAR'
Mr Junhua revealed the horrors of working at the facility where workers are exposed to viruses which could kill them and their families.
He said: “I can feel the fear: the fear of infections and the fear of getting lost. Because of the fear, I take every step extremely cautiously.
“The more scared I feel, the more care I take in executing every detail.
“Because the process of you finding the viruses is also when you can be exposed to them the easiest.”
CHINA CORONAVIRUS TIMELINE
Coronavirus originated in Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading around the world as a pandemic.
- December 31 - China alerts the World Health Organisation (WHO) to an unknown virus in Wuhan
- January 7 - WHO offcials identifiy the new virus as its linked to a seafood market
- January 11 - China announces its first death from the virus
- January 13 - The first case is reported outside China with a case in Thailand
- January 23 - Wuhan is placed under qurantine
- February 9 - Death toll in China surpasses Sars outbreak at 811
- February 11 - Coronavirus is dubbed Covid-19 by WHO
- February 18 - China's daily infection figures drops below 2,000 for first time
- March 11 - WHO declares outbreak a global pandemic
- March 18 - No new cases reports in China for first time since start of outbreak
- March 25 - China begins to relax quaratine restrictions on Wuhan and Hubei province
- March 31- US death toll surpasses China
- April 1 - China admits to unreported asymptomatic cases
- April 2- Global case count surpasses one million
- April 4 - China holds three minutes of silence to mark the dead
The academics behind the now retracted research paper, Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, of South China University of Technology, allege Covid-19 likely came from WCDC.
Is it any wonder that a virus which has infected over 1.3 million people around the world originated in Wuhan?
LAB LEAK?
However, while the scientists at WCDC allegedly put their lives on the line when experimenting with bats, conditions at the secretive WIV are supposed to be of the highest possible safety standards.
Opened in 2015, the facility was the first in China to be accredited with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) - the highest level for handling diseases - after a £30million government upgrade.
Technicians in the lab either have to work in highly sterile cabinets or wear full body safety suits.
BSL-4 labs are the only places in the world where scientists can study diseases that have no cure.
BUG TESTS
There can be no sharp edges that could pierce a suit and anyone leaving the lab has to be decontaminated in a chemical shower.
All persons entering and exiting the pressurised labs through an airlock must be recorded to obey BSL-4 safety guidelines.
WIV was also built high above a flood plain and with the toughness to survive a magnitude-7 earthquake.
The facility is known to store purified viruses and help manage emerging diseases.
Experts have said it should be technically impossible for a virus to escape for a BSL-4 lab if correct protocol is followed.
But, since the coronavirus outbreak, researchers at WIV discovered the new infection is 96 per cent similar to the virus they had discovered in bats held in the lab.
Yet, scientists insist said there is no evidence to suggest the new bug is man-made - and there is no suggestion the facility's 2015 work is linked to the pandemic.
It has also emerged that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was recruiting new scientists to probe coronaviruses in bats just seven days before the outbreak.
But maybe China's Communist Party, which funds both the WIV and the WCDC, know something the rest of the world don't?
The Beijing government has began tightening security around its biolabs with President Xi Jinping saying it was a “national security” issue to improve scientific safety at a meeting in February.
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Experts continue to pursue the disease’s origins with the working theory that it crossed from bats to another animal and then onto humans - likely at the infamous wet market in Wuhan which has been closed down by the government.
Now with nearly 75,000 dead around the globe, China's regime is positioning itself as a leader in fighting the virus.
However, when the lockdowns are eased and the bodies are buried, the world will demand answers as to how this unprecedented disaster happened - and there is only one country those questions should be aimed at.
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